The Night of the Creely Cloud
by Gunney
Summary: Jim and Arte take an unplanned vacation aboard a famous clipper ship trying to beat her own record. But nothing goes as expected.
1. Prologue

Lightning thrashed at the sky, tearing a gaping hole in the clouds that immediately filled with wind, driving rain and tempest fury. The waves rolled and boiled, rotating the hapless 230 ft clipper ship like a toy top tottering on its axis. The old timber that had shone with a dull gleam only days earlier were groaning now, letting out high-pitched screeches and elongated moans as they were twisted. Each twist creating gaps. Each gap letting in more and more sea water.

She had not foundered, not yet. But she was struggling.

Aboard her were 32 souls. Thirty-one men already exhausted by nearly 14 hours of labor, on pitching decks in freezing rain. With naught to cling to but the walls and a slim hope..for they weren't yet sunk.

Twelve were below decks desperately fighting the warping, rusting arms of six pumps, meant to assuage the sea water that was pouring into her depths, to keep the clipper afloat.

Amid ships, those that could had found the tiniest of corners and wedged themselves in, desperate for what little rest they could get. Only by spelling one another on the pumps, or in the driving storm on deck, would they survive.

It was only the ship's galley that seemed at rest. A hot fire was impossible and foolhardy with the constant change of pitch. What could be saved of the ship's stores had been placed as securely as possible in the galley and crew quarters. Only the ship's cook and two ship's boys ventured away from their posts, and only to bring up the barest of supplies, which could be passed uncooked to the crew.

In the three feet of sloshing water, the frozen Atlantic turning his legs and feet numb, his arms and shoulders burning, his brow sweat covered with fever, his teeth gritted against the grinding and stubborn progress of the bilge pump, Jim West, secret service agent for the United States government was plotting a murder.

This murder would happen by his own hands, he decided, but hands that would have to heal first, considering the myriad of salt-water soaked and broken blisters covering his palms.

The handle he was struggling with operated vertically turning in a clockwise circle in opposition to a similar handle on the other side of the pump. West was working with a man, no, not a man but a boy of perhaps only 16, who couldn't have weighed more than 120 pounds, even in his saturated condition, and hadn't been more than moral support for the shift they shared. On a clear day in the rigging the kid, Liam, was fast, faster than any other man from the main deck to the crow's nest. But speed on the lines meant nothing in the face of the menial grunt work that could be their deliverance, and if Jim was exhausted he knew the kid had to be more so.

The only thing that kept West going was his plot, his enraged murder plot. By his own hands, he thought forcing the handle toward himself gritting his teeth as skin tugged and tore. Around his target's throat just above the band of his tan silk Ascot tie. Jim forced pent air out of his lungs and lunged forward, forcing the handle outward and then down, the canvas and wire hose inhaling and expunging water from the hold.

Four of the five other pumps and the men who manned them, labored similarly. The odd pump out had refused to move an hour ago and now the even odder member of the crew was bent over it, digging with a wood worker's chisel into the very heart of the machine to clear the debris that had gummed up the works. Nearly engulfed by tar and canvas fisherman's waders, a knit wool cap pulled tight over graying curls, and the fitted blue wool jacket of a midshipman, Eleanor Creely, ship's navigator, at 50 years of age cursed vehemently at the vile pump, the rag that had become wedged in the mechanism and the storm that held her clipper, _Flying Cloud_ in thrall. The pumps, according to one man in particular, were supposed to have been brand new, a major factor toward convincing Jim that the ship was perfectly sea worthy.

Not a man among them reacted to the string of epitaphs escaping Mrs Creely's mouth, some even added a few of their own. Jim was surprised to hear something of a low nature come from Liam just before he gave up the ghost, slumping against his handle and sliding towards the filthy bilge water. Jim lunged over the machine managing to cram one of his swollen hands under the kid's arm pit before he went under. West swore under his breath at the man that had convinced him to board the ship, before shouting for Haversham to come help.

The giant red-haired mule of a man high stepped through the deep water and scooped Liam up effortlessly, moving gracefully with the keel of the ship, heading for the hatchway.

Jim West clung to the pump as the boat rolled, fixated in his exhaustion on the sight of the Widow Creely, valiantly fighting the handle on one side, while two of her men fought on the other, finally forcing the stubborn mechanism back into action. They were too tired to cheer, and what had seemed like endless energy exuding from their erstwhile leader, turned grey in her cheeks as Eleanor straightened and stepped away from the pump.

Jim dragged his numb legs against the tidal pull of the water getting to Mrs. Creely's side in time to support her as she stumbled.

"Oh...Jim" She sighed, an unexpectedly powerful, yet feminine hand falling against his soaked chest as he supported her, guiding her toward the same hatchway. "You've got to be exhausted." She finished after another deep breath.

"There must be something about a woman carving up a bilge pump that gives a man an unexpected boost." Jim gave as much of a smirk as he could manage and they took the swaying steps up together, clinging hard to the soaked railing.

For a moment West thought she was gasping, but realized as they gained the mid-deck hallway that she was laughing. His smirk broadened to a smile and he found himself wheezing as well a moment later, a comforting sort of madness creeping over his mind and body. As a wave rocked the ship sweeping their feet out from under them they landed together in a heap, Jim desperately throwing out his hands to keep from crushing his charge until the ship righted itself, and then swayed the other way, sending them both tumbling a few feet down the hall. Jim's back and head came to rest against a heavy, briny pile of canvas and rope, Eleanor, still laughing, landing against his chest.

He threw his arms around her before she could roll away again and a temporary lull in the movement of the ship gave him time to wind his hand into the mess of rope and cloth, anchoring himself as much as possible.

When the next wave hit they only shifted a little. The spot in which they had landed was damp, but shielded from the onslaught of sea water traveling through the ship like it were made of cheese cloth. As good a place as any, he thought, only to realize that Mrs. Creely had already thought of it, and was unconscious in his arms.

He wasn't far behind, he knew, and afraid that once he lost consciousness he might let her go, Jim wound his other hand into a loose loop of rope, twined weary legs around the frail woman's torso and locked his ankles together.

His final, feverish thought as he lay, watching the waterfalls of rain tumble down the groaning walls, was of the other 30 souls aboard, one of which he thought, had better damned well survive, because Jim West was going to kill him. And not even Nature herself was permitted to take from him that satisfaction.


	2. Chapter 1

_May - 1874_

_New York City_

"It was 1853 Jim, the middle of the gold rush. Suddenly the golden west was the greatest attraction to a dull and complacent eastern sea board. And going by ship, from New York City harbor, around Cape Horn, and into the welcoming bosom of San Francisco harbor in less than 90 days was far preferred to traveling for 6, 7, 8 months over land. Indians..." Arte tossed out, flicking a long fingered hand dangerously close to a full wine goblet. "Dysentery." Another flick of his wrist and his fork nearly flew off the table. "The Wagons," Arte grimaced, "The oxen, the..."

"Buffalo?" Jim offered, humor playing behind his eyes.

But Arte pounced on it, "The Buffalo, exactly, giant smelly beasts. But the ocean Jim, oh..." With a delirious sigh Arte sat back in his chair, his eyes rolling upward behind flittering lids, a dreamy smile on his face. A little dramatic but James West had come to expect that sort of thing out of his partner.

And then, just as suddenly, the drama left him and Artimus Gordon was smirking at him. "Well you could hardly blame me for going."

"89 days, huh?"

"89 days and 21 hours, a record. And she beat the _Andrew Jackson_ no matter what anybody tells you." Arte shook his head, scanning the room behind Jim's back. A habit that they both had picked up from the job, that never seemed to go away. "The Creely's were magnificent. They knew that clipper from stem to stern. If she carried so much as one stowaway Josiah would know it. He could judge the weight of the ballast, the supplies and the crew down to the slightest pound by how she sat in the water. It was eerie Jim."

"He sounds like a remarkable man." Jim eyeballed his empty glass, the empty bottle beside it, and the conspicuous lack of wait staff anywhere near their table.

Without appearing to be aware of it, Arte pushed his full glass toward his partner, barely taking a breath before continuing. "He was brilliant! He could find a prevailing wind in a cove surrounded on three sides by hundred foot cliffs. He would climb the rigging of the main mast to the topgallant and sail the ship, direct the crew from there. He was fixated with the sails and the way they drew wind, was constantly changing the shape of them. Aerodynamics and weather patterns and...he was a veritable sea-god."

Jim sat back, the delicate goblet balanced in his otherwise destructive right hand and sipped. Arte had been on a similar rampage ever since they had been given this special leave a week ago. The trip to New York from San Francisco, on board their private train, had been spent with Arte mysteriously scrounging through the baggage car for hours at a time but without explanation. When they arrived only a night before, Artemus disappeared from the train altogether, returning early the following morning with three burlap sacks full of what he called 'supplies' and a request that Jim join him for dinner that evening. He had a 'once in a life time' opportunity he wanted Jim to consider.

"Uh...Arte, where is this sea-god now?"

The question immediately took the wind out of Arte's..well..the excitable con man leaned back in his seat again, his hands finally coming to a rest on the edge of the table.

"He's dead, Jim. He died three years ago."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Well.." Arte muttered, his finger tips playing with the corner of his napkin. "He was almost an old man in 1853. In her last letter Eleanor told me she knew him to have no regrets,...but for the one."

"This 'once in a life time'..."

Arte nodded, the smile returning slowly. "A famous vessel like the _Flying Cloud_, making one last race, one last desperate grasp at immortality before she's put to the scrap yards." Arte presented the idea with a flourish, spreading his hands and waiting, expectantly eager.

Jim drew his wine glass back from his lips and narrowed his eyes as he straightened. A jolt of adrenaline had coursed through him the second after he realized what Arte might have been proposing.

"From New York?"

Arte nodded eagerly.

"To San Francisco!?"

Arte nodded again.

"Arte, we don't have 90 days."

"89, and with some of the changes that Josiah made before he died, that Eleanor and I have been discussing we could cut even that short." Arte thrust a finger at Jim then threw the same hand into the air. Instantly a waiter with a bottle of wine appeared, bowed and filled a brand new wine goblet with a freshly cracked vintage, then set the bottle on the table, clearing the empty.

He was gone before Jim had a chance to address him, and baffled as he was, he didn't have the chance to interrupt Arte either.

"She'll carry fewer crew, well-trained and seasoned sailors, and many of them have already been serving on the _Cloud_ for the past decade or so. Already she's been operating under her new sails for several months and they are...well magnificent, Jim, you have to see them."

"Arte..."

"Eleanor's charted a course that will make maximum use of headwinds and currents. Quite unlike anything I've ever seen and daring." Arte grinned, bringing his wine glass almost to his lips before he put it down again. "She's been navigating for decades. It was her navigation and her husband's knowledge that won them that first race."

"Arte."

"Now the _Flying Cloud_ has been making money in the passenger and trade goods realm and Josiah, the old miser never spent a penny that wasn't pointed directly back at the ship. She's old, but she's firm in the water. Eleanor's just as steady don't you worry about her."

"Art-"

"We'll be leaving in three days, but that gives us over a week of easy sailing to get you acclimated to your sea legs, running the lines, etc. Of course I shall act as pilot most of the time, but once you've learned the basics I'm sure you'll move your way up."

With a deep breath Jim considered their location, in a busy and well-heeled restaurant in one of the more affluent corners of New York City. Pressing his lips together in what some might call a pout, Jim gritted his teeth and growled softly, "Arte...I haven't agreed yet."

Artemus Gordon paused, considering the look on his partner's face and the generally stubborn posture. He swallowed a small bit of wine, considered the sterling table settings, the linen napkins, then a slow and vague smile creased his lips and he leaned toward James West.

"Yet?"

* * *

Two days later both men stood at the base of the gang-plank on a busy dock swarming with workers staring up at what Gordon called a 'grande old lady of le mer". She was over 200 feet in length, with a 41 foot beam. Constructed out of hard and soft woods, and one of only a few remaining clippers to sport an entirely wooden hull, the _Flying Cloud_ gleamed with a satin finish. Her teak decking and brass rails, white washed sides and sleek masts stood out amongst the others moored near her, a proud old dame indeed. She had the traditional 18 sails, all secured while in dock, affixed to three masts, the fore, main and mizzen.

"Now those lines there running between the deck and the tops of the masts, those that look like flat steel cables..."

Jim nodded, following the brighter lines of metal attached to newer treated bolts that were sunk deep into the decking. "Those are for the Creely Sails?"

Artemus smiled in that same vague way and turned to look over the clipper, his chest swelling with pride. "Those _are_ the Creely sails, Jim."

"You're not giving away my secrets, Mr. Gordon..."

From aft a coarse but clearly feminine voice cut through the chatter of the working crew and both men of the Secret Service were instantly drawn into the powerful gaze of an older woman. Her graying hair was pulled up tightly into a bun that was hidden under a flat-topped sort of beret, a traditional hat for a sailor. Beneath its slight shadow was a heart-shaped face, worn by time and sun and wind, but almost spritely in nature. Bright blue eyes reflected the light coming off the sea and near the nape of her neck tendrils of still reddish hair curled attractively. Her blouse was a cleverly designed dark blue sailor's tunic with split sleeves, displaying white cotton shirtsleeves underneath that belled slightly. Beneath she wore a simple dark blue skirt that fell only to her ankles allowing ease of movement.

Jim was surprised to see that her clothing ended there. The woman, despite her age, stood barefoot atop the deck.

"Jim West..." Gordon said, softly, after giving Jim enough time to acclimate to her appearance. "May I present our navigator, Mrs. Eleanor Hawkins Creely."


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Mrs. Creely's voice was a grainy mix of New England bark and Old London bite.

"I was born near the sea. My father operated a light house for many years, and before that was a fisherman, and before that a Navy man. He met my mother across the great ocean, and they were married near the Cliffs of Dover. When, after a string of sons, my father's only daughter began to show a keen interest in his seafaring tales and anecdotes, he, bless his soul, encouraged me to learn." She smiled quietly, revealing tiny pearl like teeth behind her weathered and suntanned lips. "He was quite good." She assured, her eyes flitting to the familiar face of Artimus Gordon, before they returned to the blue-green of his partner Jim West.

Mr. West was younger than her dear friend, perhaps by almost ten years, but the excitement that she could feel vibrating from Arte seemed to supernaturally alter their ages. She could easily sense that James West was reluctant to be aboard, hesitant about the trip, perhaps even in outright disapproval. And of course there would be dangers, as there were in all great undertakings. But she found her fears had been pulled asunder with the leaving of the tide, and nothing but excitement and the thrill of the challenge ahead remained.

She didn't feel her age, and she doubted that Arte did either.

"He taught me how to use the sextant and to read the stars and the clouds. To see the ocean as you see the land, with its hills and vales."

"I've no doubt of your abilities, Mrs. Creely." Jim said. He smiled warmly, already liking the older woman despite himself. "I just don't believe Arte has been entirely forthright in his communication of our availability."

"Oh, Jim..."

"Arte we were given four weeks, not three months."

"How many times has Washington tried to force either one of us into a vacation? How many weeks..no, months of vacation time do you have piling up? I've got more than three months coming my way and I've already applied for it."

Arte's voice dropped a little and his eyes dipped to the decking and Jim knew what was coming before it came.

"You've...already applied for it too." Arte admitted, then cautiously met Jim's eyes. There was a long hard stare between the two before Arte ventured a smile and Jim broke, chuckling softly and shaking his head.

Eleanor Creely stood between the two men, her eyes bouncing back and forth, a slow grin on her face as well. Arte had always been a charmer in his own way and it was a wonder to see how his abilities had and hadn't changed over the years.

"Mr. West this will prove to be an incredible adventure, and you don't appear to be a man who shies away from such things. From what Artimus has told me of you over the years, you would be an invaluable asset to our crew."

"Jim, she's a fine ship. You've seen all she has to offer. I _know_ half of these men, and trust all of them. We're just seeing the old girl one last time around the end of the continent."

In the silence that followed the sea seemed to sense the gap in conversation and took up for itself. The waves lapped louder, crashing into a beach a half mile distant. The collection of ships creaked and nodded and beckoned to any man still standing on the dock, promising the great splendor, beauty and wealth of the sea. The sea gulls screeched and cawed, swooping in a daredevil's ballet.

Jim's face was a mask of disbelief. Every part of him screamed that this was another one of Arte's great ideas that turned into bad mistakes, through no particular fault of his own. That somewhere along the line he was going to deeply regret taking that final step up the gangplank. And yet Artimus and Eleanor Creely were correct. They were prepared, well equipped, experienced. It _was _a once in a life time experience. The bottom line, however, was that Jim knew, with or without him, Arte _was_ going.

He knew it was better to be with Artimus when all heck broke loose, than apart.

Arte read the agreement in Jim's face the moment it happened and he clapped the man on the shoulder with a delighted laugh. After a moment of confusion Eleanor smiled and reached her hands out to the man, thanking him softly.

"This will be like nothing you've ever done before Jim, it will change your life, I swear it." Arte said.

* * *

Jim jerked awake to a fading crack of thunder and the echo of Arte's words ringing in his head. He was cold and wet, almost numb. Until he moved his arms, that was. They were still tightly wrapped in the heavy rope and his hands were whiter than his arms where the circulation had been temporarily cut off. It was like looking at the hands of a dead man, he thought, in some detached part of his mind.

Gritting his teeth he worked his shoulder and elbow slowly extracting his hands. He was exhausted by the time the two swollen appendages flopped uselessly to his stomach, but already he could feel the pins and needles returning.

"N-nothing like you've ever done, Jim." West muttered, shivering, then threw out his elbows as the ship rocked. The motion reminded him that he wasn't alone and he jerked his head up, only to be relieved a moment later that Eleanor was still with him, her torso wrapped in his equally numb legs. "It'll change your life!" He grunted and tried wiggling his fingers. They hurt, but they moved.

In the lull between thunder claps or gusts of wind Jim West could hear faint shouts from the deck above. The crash of waves over the decking bellowed, almost as loud as the thunder, but there was still clearly life aboard the ship, he couldn't have been unconscious that long. Testing his fingers again he found that he could close them into fists and he rubbed them against his thighs to simulate some kind of warmth. The motion jostled the woman he held on to but she remained asleep.

"Eleanor..." Jim pressed the outsides of his fingers to her cheeks and wasn't surprised that the burn of her skin almost scalded his. Forcing his ankles apart with his ever-increasing dexterity, Jim gathered the older woman, soaked waders and all, clumsily into his arms and managed to get to his knees. The ship leapt suddenly on the sea and he was unexpectedly on his feet for a few seconds before he was slammed against the wall behind him.

The world went white, then gray before his vision cleared and he found himself still upright, Eleanor hanging limply in his arms. The ship settled and he forced bumbling limbs into action, counting closed doors down the length of the hallway until he found the one that led to the sick bay. The most popular room for the past day or so. He fell through the swaying door, sprawling onto the legs and arms of three crewmen, desperately trying to rest. The ship's physician, Hadrian Lieben, tottered to his feet an instant later and made his way to West clinging to a network of ropes that had been strung above eye level, for just such a purpose.

"She's unconscious." Jim managed from where he lay, still dizzy, starting to feel a stunning throbbing at the back of his skull.

"Did she hit her head?" Lieben asked relinquishing his hold on the ropes to kneel on the crowded floor, long fingers finding the woman's pulse, shaking his head at the fever he felt.

Jim started to shake his head, then was hit with an avalanche and thought better of it. He threw a swollen hand over his eyes to shield them from some of the light that only made the pain worse and answered, "No. She was working on a bilge pump, became exhausted."

"Her und every other person on board," Lieben said, his normally light Germanic accent having thickened over night. "Und you, Mr. West, are bleeding." He added, sounding just detached and professional enough to be oddly comforting.

"I hit the bulkhead.." Jim muttered, feeling the burst of pain subside a little and opening his eyes to slits. "They'll need more men on the pumps. Liam, did he-?"

"He's just over there. Exhausted of course, but resting."

Jim followed the doctor's gesture and found the young boy covered in blankets and packed into the corner between two other crew members, for the moment secure.

The examination table, the doctor's desk and the storage cabinets that he remembered from the weeks before had all been turned on their sides and lashed tightly into places where they could not slide. The rest of the room was packed with bodies and blankets, the reduced size of the sick bay cabin in comparison to others on board was in this case a godsend. Less distance to fly meant fewer chances of serious injury.

With the next rock of the ship Jim was able to sit up and finally pressed a hand to he back of his head. He could feel the warm slickness of the blood in contrast to the cold, salt water soaking his hair.

'Like nothing you've ever done, he said.' Jim thought, before he was handed a dingy but clean cloth.

"Put that against the wound." He was told, and then was handed a blanket. It was coarse, thick and dry. Compared to his present state Jim was almost reluctant to let the blanket touch him, but the doctor hovered until Jim had wrapped it over his legs and torso. The weight of the blanket and the pressing pain in his head worked in tandem to pull him back into the darkness, but Jim fought it, watching as Lieben removed the heavy canvas waders from Eleanor Creely, then respectfully covered her with a blanket before removing the other soaked articles of clothing.

She was soon tightly ensconced in blankets and wedged safely between the doctor himself, and a barrier of sacks of grain.

Jim West had slipped into a fog where the pain went away, and it took only the merest of steps to find rest, when another crew member rocketed through the door, catching himself at the last minute on the web of lines overhead.

"Lieben, doc! We need you up top. It's Mr. Gordon. He's in real trouble."


	4. Chapter 3

They'd been aboard the _Flying Cloud _for a week, sailing almost directly east out of New York harbor. They hadn't had a bad day yet. What might have been a humid 85 in Georgia, or an arid 90 in Arizona, or a breezy but warm 78 in New York city was a perfect, if windy 72 every day aboard ship.

James West, a man who had never shied from hard work when he had it to do, had more calluses, bruises and sore muscles than he could remember ever having on any other job. And this was meant to be his vacation.

Unlike most military or merchant vessels, there was no strict hierarchy of command. While the clear leaders aboard were Artemus, Eleanor and the boson, Ian Haversham, every man took to the menial jobs as need be. Even Eleanor.

The clipper, built entirely for speed, ran under sail constantly which required the continued presence of men in the rigging at all times. When he wasn't learning how to climb the thick rope, he was bending over a thread and needle repairing canvas. Jim West, sewing! But none of the other men complained, turning the sewing 'bees' into bawdry affairs with salty tales and plenty of wine on hand. Splicing ropes, caring after the all wood hull, running various disaster drills with the other crew members. There was never a shortage of work and thanks to Arte's presence in the galley, nor was there a shortage of good food.

"Of course it won't always be this way." Eleanor mentioned, at the dinner table one evening. "We're in good supply so long as we're in US waters and even down along the coast of Brazil. But our charted course will keep us well off shore most of the time, and the farther south we travel the poorer the countries."

Struck by a sudden memory Artemus rocked back in his seat and clapped his hands together. "Oh I remember, what was it...that little country. Urugu or something, it was socked in by Brazil."

Eleanor smiled, her eyes dancing. "Uruguay. Yes and the native celebration."

"Yes!" Arte slapped the table in his exuberance. "It was wild, Jim. They'd only won their independence as a nation 40 years ago and just a year before we passed through they had been under seige. We had to have arrived on an anniversary or something."

"There was a great celebration, one that probably could be heard from Buenos Aires, it was so flamboyant. There were so many boats in the harbor we were hard put to find a berth for the night." Eleanor added.

"Everything the country had to offer was on display. Foods and spirits, crafts and exotic animals. We almost bought a parrot didn't we? The most fantastic, elaborate music you've ever heard. And the dancing; tango and the candombe."

"Candombe?" Jim asked, recognizing the guarded looks that he was suddenly getting from Arte and Eleanor.

"A dance for the African slaves." Arte finally said, smiling a bit. "It has ancient roots in their culture, a way of showing defiance, a way of surviving. The rhythms of hundreds of drums that seemed to derive from the very soul. With tribal clothing and paint all over their faces. These were the lowest of citizens in the country, taking to the streets and proclaiming their heritage without fear."

"But this was a celebration?" Jim asked.

"Well of course, what better way to disguise such a statement."

"Artemus, do you remember the food?" Eleanor asked.

Arte groaned, and laughed. "These people, they knew their beef. You bite into an American steak and you _know _what you'll get. In Uruguay! It was as if the cow itself were a gift from the gods."

Eleanor laughed, "Oh and Josiah and the barbeque kidneys."

Both Arte and Eleanor were laughing now, and Jim found himself smiling without really knowing why. Every evening meal he spent with the _Flying Cloud's_ pilot and navigator had been full of stories of wild countries, adventures on the high seas and fantastic discoveries that had made him come to realize what little he knew about the world after all.

More and more the ongoing mystery of what made his dear friend Artemus Gordon into the man he was, became clearer too. Having never heard of this trip, or Eleanor until the day they arrived in New York, Jim had to wonder what other adventures Gordon had neglected to tell him about.

He would make a point in the future to ask, he thought.

"Sadly, we will be missing Uruguay on this trip." Eleanor mentioned, reaching for her wine glass. "But they were will be many other new countries to visit and explore. And this time your friend West will share in the memories." She held her glass aloft and Jim and Arte did the same, ringing the goblets together and drinking to her toast.

"To new discoveries." Jim said, and he was echoed by the others.

After setting his glass down again Artemus grinned at Jim. "I told you, you wouldn't regret it."

* * *

"Arte..? Arte! Wake up, come on." Jim shouted.

"Ah! Oh..Jim. ...I think I'm beginning to regret this.."

"Beginning!?"

With a wince Arte nodded to himself, blinking rapidly against the pouring rain and salt water that had him solidly soaked, and still endeavored to drown him. He looked up and saw nothing but the dark, lightning streaked sky and the tatters of canvas that were all that was left of the main topgallant.

"Can you move Arte?" Jim called, his voice barely audible from where he had lashed himself to the main mast on the deck, 36 feet below Artemus Gordon.

It was a good question, Arte thought. He turned his head to the left, found it was sore, along with his neck and that his left arm appeared to be held captive in the rigging. There was something odd about how it hung, stretched at such an extreme angle, but when he commanded his fingers to move, they did. To his right were the five inches of wet wooden platform remaining of the crosstrees he had landed on...landed. Meaning he had fallen.

"Arte? Can you hear me?"

"I hear ya, Jim." Arte shouted back and kicked out with his feet as the ship pitched hard leeward, throwing him into the rigging. His left shoulder came alive with an excruciating pop and just as he got his right hand onto the rigging his left hand came loose. As it fell to his side there was another pop and it felt as though his whole left side were on fire. His face contorted into a grimace and he could only cling to the rigging as the storm tossed the ship around.

"He's got on a safety line but I can't tell what it's tied to." He heard someone shout from below. The cross tree above him, he thought. That was what it was attached to. He'd tied a safety line around his waist once he'd left the rigging and had tied the other end to the crosstrees before going out on the yard of the upper topsail, just below the topgallant. Almost the highest and largest sail on the main mast.

"Arte, are you still anchored?" Jim shouted.

By only craning his neck a little Arte could see him far below. Jim looked pale and small compared to the waves that continued to wash the deck.

"Yes." Arte answered, before a shift of the sea, and the consequent movement in his shoulder shut him up again. "I...I don't know that I can climb down, Jim."

"What was he doing up there in the first place?" That was familiar, the pitch of Jim's voice rising the way it always did whenever West got angry.

Hugging the rigging tighter Arte took a deep breath and shouted, "The topgallant was luffing, about to tear loose."

It might have been a loose stay or a tear in the canvas but the topgallant was too important to let flap in the breeze. If they lost it they could run the risk of losing the main mast itself. Assuming they survived the storm the extra canvas would have been equally as valuable.

"So you went up after it alone!?" Jim shouted.

Arte shrugged his shoulders, then gritted his teeth as the move made bone scrape against bone in his left arm. A stupid move, and going after the top gallant might have been equally as stupid. It had seemed like a good idea at the time.

"You know, Jim, as much as I enjoy your yelling at me, I'd much prefer to have this conversation on the ground."

"We haven't GOT ground! We're on a ship, ARTE!" Jim screamed from below.

There was a pause, the ship rocking to the beat of staccato thunder claps, and out on the horizon, which couldn't truly be called a horizon for how it meshed seamlessly with the sea, Arte thought he might have seen a light of some kind. A brief flash of something reflecting before it was swallowed by the storm.

"Alright, Arte. You stay put up there." Jim called up after a moment and a glance downward told Gordon that none other than the indestructible James West was preparing to climb the rigging to his rescue. A second later he spotted the bandage.

"Oh no you don't...not with a head injury, no sir!" Arte shouted.

The ship rolled and dipped and James halted in his climb to cling to the rigging. A second later a loud chuckle filtered up.

"Nothin' but a scratch, Arte, you know me."

"Ha!" Arte barked, sarcastically, suddenly fighting a wave of nausea. Whatever was wrong with his shoulder didn't feel like a temporary problem, worse still the pain was bringing on a bout of sea sickness that he hadn't felt in the entire month that they'd been water bound. 'Great,' he thought, 'Jim will get up here only to be vomited on.'

A flash of lightning hit the mizzen mast a moment later and the light and sound blinded every man on deck. The man who had been lashed to the mizzen mast started screaming that he was on fire and the two crew members who had been under the main mast ran, or rather sloshed, to his aid.

Arte could only be grateful that his perch hadn't been the target and he stared out into the darkness waiting for his eyes to recover. Once again there was a flash of light that briefly broke through the rising and falling walls of sea water. Only this time he was struck by a chilling realization. He recognized the light. He'd seen it before. Not that one in particular, but a hundred like it.

By the time Jim reached the crosstree the light had disappeared again.

"Jim...good of you to join me. Hey listen, there's something you should see..."

Fastening his own safety line to the crosstrees, then pulling the loose coil of extra rope from his shoulder to fasten around Arte, Jim shook his head. "Hate to be rude, Arte, but we don't have the time for sight seeing. Here...cut loose of that other safety line."

Arte eyed the knife Jim held out then looked to his useless left arm, and his occupied right.

"I can't."

"Arte, this isn't the time to suddenly tell me you're afraid of heights, now help me out and-"

"Jim, look! There it is!" Pointing his chin out toward the rotating light that flashed through the cloud cover, Arte waited for Jim to see it. A powerful beam of light. In a place where no such beam of light could possibly be.

"Is that a-"

Arte nodded. "A light house."

"We're in the middle of the oc-"

"I know." Arte said. "Apparently so are they."


	5. Chapter 4

Day 12 Aboard

They had turned southward two days before, spotting a pod of whales soon after; a sign of good luck according to most of the crew. The evening sun was setting slowly off the starboard railing with a cascade of colors. Reds and yellows near the horizon blending into puce and magenta, violet and at the crescendo of the firmament, dark navy blue. The night promised to be clear, the stars abundant.

Having just preformed his last duty for the evening, lighting the green lantern at the bowsprit, Jim West stood against the railing feeling more at peace than he had in ages. The sea lapped gently against the hull, the sails filled constantly with the wind and there was nothing but open ocean surrounding them.

He took a deep breath, caught a whiff of cigar smoke and turned to find a snifter of brandy at his elbow, a second cigar with it, held aloft by the smirking man that had 'convinced' him to join this scurvy crew.

Jim toasted the end of his cigar before lighting it from the proffered flame of one of Arte's matches and they stood together in quiet watching the most important of celestial bodies leave their part of the world for another.

Arte observed his partner for a moment, thinking back; to his first day aboard the _Flying Cloud_ almost twenty years ago, when he was a young man with few honest skills to speak of; and to the day he first met Jim West, finding him to be an impetuous new Secret Service agent, yet growing ever more impressed with his abilities, in both the physical and mental realms. How very far all of them had come, even Eleanor.

Jim took in a deep breath and pursed his lips, meeting the quiet brown eyes of his friend. "Alright Arte..." He said. "I'm..." He waved his hands as if lost for words.

"Yes, Jim?" Arte encouraged, a facetiously innocent look on his face as he took a sip of brandy.

Jim set his teeth, knowing he wasn't going to get any help. "I'm...glad." He said finally, considering his choice of word before continuing, "Glad that you talked me into this trip."

"Well..." Arte started with false modesty. "Anything for a friend."

West gave him a tolerant close-mouthed smile, then shook his head as he looked back to the excellent view.

"While I know full well that you've been waiting for the second shoe to drop all this time, I appreciate your coming with us." Arte said, his voice dropping into a matter of fact tone.

Jim spread his hands in a helpless gesture. "I don't know what kind of help I've been. Eleanor has a fine crew of capable of seamen. And those sails..."

Both men looked up to the metal and cloth crescents that were for the moment unfurled from their casings. Three cabled lines extended from each mast to the deck below, each sporting four Creely sails in decreasing sizes. Unlike the canvas sails, these seemed to gleam, translucent in the light.

"They're a blend, y'know. A silk-like material weaved together with flax and cotton, the percentages lying heavily on the silk end." Arte shook his head in wonder. "Far ahead of its time. It's a shame they're so sensitive to the damp."

Even as he spoke the rapid ticking of the crank that operated the sails started behind them, Bosun Haversham furling the sails for the evening. The very same crank mechanism sat on a horizontal swivel, that when turned could redirect the sails leeward. Their shape and ease of movement practically guaranteeing that no matter where the wind was blowing, the sails could be used to maximize its power, even redirect it into the traditional canvases.

After he'd finished, Haversham threw a salute to Arte, who had turned his back to the sunset to watch the sails curling into their casings. Arte returned it as Jim turned to face him, a curious look on his face.

"Was Eleanor married in 1953?"

A baffled smirk appeared behind Arte's brandy glass and he said, "Of course, why?" before taking a drink.

"Aaah..." Jim said, smiling as he nodded, as if a great mystery had just been explained.

"Aha..let me guess. You're wondering why I didn't marry the sea nymph myself?"

Jim shrugged, muttering sounds of agreement into his brandy glass. Arte turned to consider the sunset once more, leaning his elbows against the railing.

"She was 8 years older than I was. Fascinating and exotic. An educated woman, with a supernatural knowledge of the ocean, and free reign of her own jointly owned vessel. Any man trying to pin her down to one type of girl or another could be frustrated into an early grave. There was no end to her curiosity and her ability to learn. Of course I was too young to truly recognize those qualities then, but still, she had the heart of every crew member aboard. Just as I'm sure she does now."

"_And_ there was Josiah."

Arte's eyebrows jumped up and he nodded. "I had just as much respect and admiration for Mr. Creely as I did his wife. What struck me the most was that there was no jealousy. Even on a ship full of men for weeks on end, there was never a doubt in Josiah's mind that Eleanor was true to him. They were kindred souls, united long before they met."

"Hmmm."

Arte straightened and watched Jim's face. "What?"

"Oh, nothing."

Open mouthed, with the slightest of quirks at the corner of his lips, Arte read his partner's thought process before he swatted his hand at him. "No, Jim. This isn't the time or the place. She's got her home and her children to go back to."

"Arte...did she invite you, or did you invite yourself?"

Arte thought about it, draining his brandy in the process. "She did." He said, relishing in the final, sweet glaze of the spirits on his lips.

His partner raised his eyebrows suggestively, and wheeled slowly away from the railing, leaving Arte alone with the possibilities and the cheery echo of a whistled sailing tune. A tune whose words spoke fervently of unrequited love.

Was she interested in him? In that way? Was he too young, she too old? Did he dare upset the friendship they had shared for the longest time with a proposition for something more? Was he about to admit to himself that he was in fact a coward when it came to these things?

Shaking his head Arte ground his teeth together before he popped the cigar between them. "You devil.." He muttered before finding his way to the hatch and going below to change.

* * *

The quiet sickbay was a sudden bustle of commotion. As they were hobbling through the door Artemus was already giving commands through gritted teeth. "Stanford, North. On deck for now. And lash yourselves down, boys."

Henry Stanford and Edward North, both men in their late twenties, had been some of the few to sign on in the last three years. They had proven themselves sea worthy, especially when working together and both men left without more than quiet acknowledgements.

"Put him over there, near Eleanor." Lieben directed, moving past West and Gordon to the men carrying in Samuel Coulter. An older man in his mid-forties, he had been the unfortunate sailor tied to the mizzen mast when it was struck by lightning. While he had not actually been aflame, the burns to his back and shoulders were severe enough and the man was barely conscious.

"Ach...Samuel.." Lieben muttered guiding the groaning man to another corner where he directed the crew members helping him to carefully lay him on his stomach.

With Jim's help, Arte sank gratefully to the floor; they rocked with the next great wave, Arte visibly paling. Jim watched him closely, his own headache giving him an idea of what Artemus was feeling. When the nausea and the see-sawing motion abated, Arte glanced to the sleeping Creely, then looked askance to Jim. "Is she-"

His hands busy with peeling Arte's soaked jacket off his right side, Jim tilted his head toward the Doc then replied, "He said it was just exhaustion. She was down in the bilge for too long." With as much of the jacket removed as could be without upsetting Arte's left shoulder Jim paused and got a good look at Eleanor. Her cheeks were far less pale than they had been, and she seemed comfortably at rest. "She looks better than she did. Come on."

Together they worked the jacket the rest of the way off, then the striped sailing tunic, revealing the ugly, mottled bruising and the odd lump in the swollen joint.

"Dislocated." Lieben said, appearing suddenly in front of them. He squatted at Arte's side his hands palpating the bruises, testing the flexibility of the limb and the extent of the swelling of the joint. "Returning it to the place where God intended will take some work, Mr. Gordon. Und it won't be pleasant."

Arte gave the doctor a distasteful look, and got the expected total lack of sympathy from Jim.

"Also...it must be done soon." Lieben said with a sigh.

"How's Sam?" Arte asked, nodding his head across the room.

Understanding, Lieben ducked his chin to his chest in thought, then said, "Give me a moment to explore the extent of the damage. Und then no more schtalling, Mr. Gordon."

Lieben left them and Jim stood, grabbed hold of the web of lines and monkey-barred his way across the room to where the blanket that had been formerly his lay where he had tossed it in his rush to leave the cabin. On the return trip he picked up one of the blankets that had been discarded by Stanford and North and laid the first over Arte's torso and right shoulder. The second he wrapped tightly around his own shoulders, sitting again and sinking into the warmth it provided. The adrenaline that had arisen with the words, "Mr. Gordon is in trouble." had begun to wane. There was very little, even the roar of the unending storm outside, to keep him awake. And yet he wouldn't sleep until Arte's shoulder had been tended.

"You know, that light house..." Arte muttered, his voice sounding as sleepy as Jim felt. West, wishing suddenly for his hat to block the bedamned light from the lantern, closed his eyes and mumbled an unintelligible reply.

"Is it possible to see a mirage in the middle of the ocean?" Arte rolled his head to the side, certain for the longest time that Jim had nodded off.

"Maybe it's on land."

A sick feeling, different from the ones he'd been struggling with recently, filled Arte's insides and he made a face of disgust. "I was hoping that I would be the only person to come to that conclusion."

Jim opened his eyes, staring blankly into the distance as it all sank in. When his lips pursed and his brow creased, Arte knew that he had gotten it all. "How could we-"

"Be that far off course.." Arte finished, nodding and wincing as the boat heaved once more.

"We're not lost." Jim said.

"No..."

"We should be hundreds of miles off shore."

"Right." Arte nodded.

"An uncharted island maybe?"

Arte tilted his head and considered the idea. "I like that better.."

"Well, you won't like this..." Lieben said as he approached, one hand holding tight to the ropes above his head, the other clasping a contraption made of metal and leather. "If you are up to it Mr. West I could use your help. The faster we do this the less discomfort our Mr. Gordon will have to experience."

With a soft groan Jim worked his way back to his knees, moving as the doctor directed him. Arte's eyes were fixed, horrified, on what looked more like a medieval torture device than a tool of modern medicine.

Jim had hold of one end of the thing and the doctor was affixing a leather strap around Arte's wrist when they were interrupted by a desperate stutter, "D-don't you think, these being desperate times, that a small bit of..oh brandy or whiskey might be in order?"

Jim considered Arte's hopeful face, then looked up to the doctor.

The man smiled kindly, then said. "On four?"

"One...two-"

"GAAAH!"


	6. Chapter 5

_Arte lay on a feather mattress. He imagined that the feathers stuffed into the soft satin lining had come from doves, or love birds, or ostriches...or angels. Nothing had ever felt so heavenly in his life. Not only was he resting on little more than soft clouds but he was warm, and dry. There was the slightest of breezes blowing across his skin, interrupted only by the gentle touch of a caressing and feminine hand._

_The hand smelled of rose water and lilacs, and the blessed creature left very little of his anatomy untouched. At first it had only been gentle strokes through his curling hair, then a tension abating massage to the shoulders, but now she lay her hand most intimately against his chest. He was thrilled and paralyzed all at the same time._

_"M-my dear lady.." He began, realizing that he hadn't yet seen her face, or really any of her, and perhaps he should make some effort to prove himself a gentleman._

_He was interrupted with a light hearted giggle and a gentle 'shh' sound. The hands continued to explore, hesitantly at first, but becoming more and more powerful, and the "shh' sound kept returning as well._

_As it increased in volume, the noise set up its own rhythm sounding almost like an engine barreling down a track, then smoothing out and elongating. Raking at his ear drums like a...wave._

_The hands weren't gentle any more. They were shaking him, and another set of hands was jabbing a dull blade into his left shoulder. Perhaps he should have proved gallant a little sooner, if only to escape the wrath of this woman._

_A woman who was beginning to sound a lot like Jim._

"Arte, come on, buddy." Short of prying his eyes open or slapping him, Jim had done everything he could think of to rouse Artemus. The sleep he was in was deep, and probably something that his body desperately needed, but they were abandoning ship and Arte was only half dressed; Jim wasn't about to drag him out into the elements without every possible protection.

"S'not time to wakeup yet." Arte muttered, his eyelids fluttering. "Go 'way." Then he was out again, dozing.

"Nah, nah, nah...we got places to be." Jim said forcing one sleeve of Arte's shirt over his right arm. He considered the bandaged and sling laden left arm for a second or two, then slipped the shirt over Arte's head and the arm as well. He did the same with the jacket and was cramming a woolen seamen's cap over Arte's head when the injured man came around again.

Jim didn't see the fist coming until it was nearly on him, and just barely moved his head back far enough to avoid getting it across the side of his head. He, instead, caught the fist as it went past him and yanked, getting Arte to his feet and bent at the waist over his shoulder. With one hand clutching the ropes on the ceiling of the sickbay, West began his careful progress across the now disturbingly empty floor. The blankets, the medical supplies, and most of the crew had been gone from the room for the past hour.

Those that were able had rushed around gathering emergency supplies and placing them in the lifeboats. The rest had begun lowering them over the side. A task not at all easy, even in the reduced waves and winds of the storm.

Seconds before Jim reached the door Lieben poked his head in, out of breath. "You have him?"

"Yeah.." Jim said, ducking carefully through the doorway. "You know, I think he's feeling better, too?"

"Did he awaken?" Lieben stepped further down the hall to let Jim pass, then followed closely behind gathering two canvas sacks near the hatchway before following Jim and his burden up to the deck.

"He tried to slug me, that's usually a good sign."

Out on deck the sky was deceptively light. Part of it was daylight approaching, another the lessening of the storm.

This unexpected reprieve had begun an hour or so before, prompting Edward North to run excitedly from his post and spread the elated news that the storm was ending, and there was blue sky ahead.

This had wakened everyone in sickbay but Jim and Arte, and most of the crew had begun shouting excitedly that it was over.

Eleanor knew better, but before she dashed the hopes of her men, she had to see for herself. After she got over the shock of what little she was wearing under her blankets, and was given enough privacy to dress herself again, she went on deck to scan the skies. Her fears confirmed, she was headed back to the sickbay to convey the bad news when Carl Lenier, one of her ship's engineers, stalled her in the hallway.

"We have only three pumps still working. The rest are in desperate need of repair." His quietly whispered concerns were heavily laced with a French accent, and the whisper of air traveling through his thick mustache.

Eleanor sighed, a frustrated sound, "That would be acceptable if the storm were truly ending but..."

Blue eyes widened under bushy brows and Carl parted his lips in surprise. "So she is not ended?"

Eleanor shook her head. "No, we are in what is commonly called the 'calm' of the storm. It is the very center, the eye if you will. We could remain here for hours, or only minutes. But the storm will return, just as ferocious if not more so."

"We are standing in four and a half feet of bilge water down there." Lenier told her, glancing behind him as more footsteps sounded on the hatchway stairs. Two other crew members peered over the lip of the landing, one of them advancing further so that he could be seen.

Jacob Lenier, Carl Lenier's nephew, only 18 but already the spitting image of his uncle, nodded his head in respect to Eleanor, nervously wiping his hands on a cleaning cloth. "We've lost another one." He informed them, his accent far less pronounced than that of his uncle.

"We can't survive on only two pumps." Eleanor said.

"Can we abandon ship now, and expect to survive on the open ocean?"

"The ocean may not be as uh...open as you might think, gentlemen, Eleanor." Jim West stood just behind them in the doorway of sickbay. He looked bedraggled and tired, but not as exhausted as Eleanor remembered him being the night before. She did not, however, remember the head injury that prompted the bandage around his brow.

"Arte and I may have seen something last night..."

A brief explanation later and the decision had been made. The pumps were abandoned and the men were all ordered to change as quickly as possible into as many layers of dry clothing as they had.

Blankets, food, flares, spare rope and canvas, and every emergency supply aboard was gathered with practiced precision.

Eleanor went alone to her cabin to gather her charts and a few personal possessions. Knowing that taking more than what she could easily carry could mean an unnecessary risk, and yet certain that she would never see any of it again. She also knew that it wasn't only a ship that she was abandoning.

She and Josiah had lived constantly aboard the _Flying Cloud_ for over thirty years. Aside from her children's homes on the mainland they had hardly stayed anywhere else.

Out on the deck she walked the length of the ship, staring in awe at the damage the storm had already done. There were bits of broken wood and tons of seaweed littering the deck. Many of the windows on her cabin had been smashed and the wheel was missing more than a few spokes.

A few of her crew members had scrambled to salvage some of the few remaining sheets of canvas that were without tears or tatters. Far above her she could see what remained of the main topgallant, the sail Arte had attempted to save.

Then there were the crescent shaped Creely sails, for the moment tucked safely into their casings.

There wasn't time enough to save them, and that final piece of her husband's ingenuity, perhaps soon to be lost to the sea, brought tears to her eyes. She stood, while her crew scrambled to ready themselves, clinging to the cable that descended from the main mast, cursing the wind and the waves for their cruelty.

It wasn't until Jim and Lieben stepped onto the deck, guiding a now awake but groggy Artemus Gordon between them, that she stepped away from the past for the final time and toward the railing.

As Artemus was carefully lowered over the side she gave the official order.

"All hands abandon ship." She commanded, her voice quivering. Jim and Doctor Hadrian Lieben stood on either side of her as she did, and for a split second she felt the memory of her husband, directly behind her. Supporting her in his quiet way. Perhaps she thought, if his spirit were to remain with the ship, guiding the _Flying Cloud_ through the afterlife, she would meet them again some day.

Moments later the three life rafts separated from the ship, the navigator's raft in the lead with the others loosely lashed together behind. Consulting her compass Mrs. Eleanor Creely charted a course that would take them away from the ship, and in the general direction of the lighthouse that James West and Artemus Gordon had claimed to have seen.

She never again looked back upon the _Flying Cloud_, choosing to remember her as she had first seen her.


	7. Chapter 6

Day 24 Aboard, 3 days before the big storm.

Arte stood outside the Captain's cabin fiddling with his light tan, silk Ascot tie, straightening his gold and tan brocade vest, and the brown jacket, short in the front, long in the back. An outfit that normally felt perfectly comfortable and it was suddenly too tight around his neck, constricting his rib cage and riding up his backside, inexplicably.

He wore his best boots, shined to a high gloss, his hair slicked back and feathering just behind the ears and he had even brushed the brown felt hat. Somehow he still felt under-dressed.

Was it too ridiculous to have brought a tux along on such a voyage?

'Might be meeting kings and queens..' he thought to himself. 'Think how foolish I'll look.'

And just how foolish did he look now, he wondered?

It was three pm, two hours before dinner, and here he stood under the watchful eye of a dozen men, awkwardly stalled outside the door of Eleanor Creely.

He took a deep steadying breath, reached his fist out to the door and promptly turned his back on it, walking three surefooted steps away from her cabin before he stopped himself again. Coward, a small voice accused, you great coward.

He turned back around and eyeballed the door. It was dinner, only a private dinner invitation. Something he had done hundreds of times in the past, with hundreds of other women.

Was it the 'hundreds of other women' that was making him nervous, a small percentage of which had refused him, or just that it was her.

They'd exchanged thousands of letters in the past 20 years, hesitant and formal at first before they evolved into elaborate 12 page affairs, whole days of conversations between them. Only in the past five years, during Josiah's illness and following his death had the letters come anywhere near being intimate.

He had been flattered when Eleanor shared her desire to have him along on the final voyage of the _Flying Cloud, _even more delighted to see her looking so well. Strong and curious and passionate as ever.

'We're on a manmade island in the middle of the ocean, what can she possibly do, evict me?' He thought, and yet he was irrationally afraid of that very thing.

Muttering to himself, several former 'characters' of his arguing with themselves in his head, Arte forced himself back toward the door and knocked three times. He fought the urge to run, and stood there, fingertips nervously knocking against his thighs, waiting.

There was no response. He knocked again. His nerves were calming, his body relaxing, his mind subconsciously telling him that the crisis was over. She wasn't there. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, certainly nothing lost.

He was turning to leave when he heard a female voice say, "Artemus?"

And there she was, standing directly behind him. Surprised he backed into the door to her cabin, knocking his head against the low frame. He reflexively crouched, his hand flying to the back of his head and knocking his hat off. The wind caught it immediately and were it not for Liam's quick hands in the rigging, it might have been lost to the sea forever.

The men on deck were chuckling, they would say _with_ him, not at him. Eleanor's eyes were dancing, her mouth struggling to contain the smile. "Are you alright?" She asked, looking to where Arte's hand was still pressed against his aching skull.

Arte gave a half-hearted smile in return, smoothing his hair back into place before he accepted his hat back from Liam. He automatically put it on his head, then snatched it back off again, once more smoothing his hair.

"I..I..was wondering if you wouldn't care to..." he paused, meeting her eyes and finding that the contact stilled his tongue entirely. A dopey smile was working its way onto his face too and he could just feel Jim laughing at him, even though he was nowhere to be seen. "What I was going to ask was, you..." he minced, shaking his head, as if already in total disagreement with himself, "...wouldn't be interested in j-joining...uh me...for-"

"Mrs. Creely!"

"One moment, Haversham. Yes Artemus?"

"Well I just thought that perhaps you and I could-"

"Pardon the intrusion, Mrs. Creely but there's a malfunction with your sails."

"A malfunction, Ian, they're sails, how can they malfunction?"

"Uh.." Ian hesitated, looking between Eleanor and Artemus, suddenly realizing that he had interrupted something. "It'd be best, Ma'am, if you just came and looked at them. When you have the time.."

"I'll be there in a moment." Eleanor smiled distantly to Ian then turned back to the taller man, her hands clasped in front of her, looking twenty years younger than her age. "Now then, Artemus. You had a question?"

Artemus took a deep breath, telling his reluctant heart that he was going for it. Hell or high water. But before he could force out a single word there was a loud _twang_ from the bow, shouts from half a dozen men and Ian was already running toward the commotion shouting, "She's snapped hasn't she!?"

Both Eleanor and Artemus were spellbound by the situation for a second before Arte put his hat back on his head and pressed his lips together in solemn acceptance of the circumstances. "We should...probably look after that sail."

Eleanor considered him for a moment before she nodded, confused and unexpectedly disappointed that Arte hadn't finished his request.

* * *

"Why didn't you ask her again, Arte?" Jim asked in between measured breaths.

"I suppose I could have made the request while we were wrestling the cable back into place..." Arte offered, spreading the fingers of his right hand and twisting his wrist, as if tossing out a new card on green felt, every part of him oozing sarcasm. "...or while I was cooking dinner for thirty men in the mess. I thought about asking whilst I was dangling from the main mast but it hardly had the same gallant flair."

Jim couldn't help but smirk. Arte's outbursts had always been amusing to him. While he felt some sympathy for his friend and his difficulties with the opposite gender, he had never understood Gordon's lack of confidence. Put the man in a disguise with an accent and somebody else to be and he could win the heart of the coldest, prettiest, most unconquerable shrew of them all. But Arte, just being Arte, stumbled over his own feet, tripped over his tongue and sometimes quit before he'd even begun. Jim had encountered more than a few ladies that found that sort of man charming, but Arte never seemed aware of it.

"Why should she want to be with me..." Arte muttered to himself. Seated on the gunwales at the back of the life boat that they shared with 13 other men, he had wrapped a blanket around himself, preferring the support of the seat against his spine. Most of the other men had unconsciously followed suit, and other than North, who sat at the bow as a spotter keeping the other life boats in sight, and Jim taking his turn on the oars, most of the rest of them had fallen asleep.

"Neither one of us leads a normal, stable life..." Against all odds the weather had remained relatively calm. Between spritz of rain and a few unsettling waves the storm had remained at bay, literally forming a well around them, beyond which they could not see. A light fog had seemed to increase the distance between the boats, but every ten minutes or so a shout would arise from one spotter to the next indicating that the path ahead was clear.

"She would...she could never give up the sea..." Arte assured Jim, shaking his head vehemently. "And live on a train? Madness."

Arte was silent for a while, staring beyond where Jim sat and into the gray distance, his free right hand resting on his knee, thumb and forefinger circling each other in synchronization with the rhythm Jim had set on the oars.

For his own part Jim had never considered settling down as an option. There were plenty of ladies that he enjoyed the company of, plenty more that he intended to enjoy, but none changed his opinions on marriage. None yet, anyway. Further, they all seemed to understand that about him, for none had tried.

After a few more minutes of silent brooding, Arte tilted his head toward Jim and nodded toward the seat he was sitting on. "Want me to spell ya?"

"Ah...ha." Jim smiled, the same thin-lipped, toleration smile. "That's funny, Arte..."

"Got ya didn't I?" Arte muttered, grinning back and they both started to chuckle.

"Mr. Gordon?"

Arte tilted his head so that he could see around Jim and tossed, "Yes, Mr. North?" down the length of the boat.

"I think I saw the light."

"Bless you my son, would that we could all have that assurance of eternity."

Arte was fighting a grin, winking at Jim even as Edward North turned a baffled look towards the two of them. Arte thought he almost saw a small bit of fear behind the man's eyes, and got the impression that young Edward was now fully convinced that he was crazy.

Both men waited for a response, and the silence that followed proved even more entertaining. They were laughing again when the young man jumped to his feet, rocking the boat as he shouted, "There it is again!"

"My God, he's right." Arte said, suddenly sober. Wincing as he moved stiff legs and worked against the abused muscles in his shoulder, Arte levered his way upright onto the bench behind him. A telescope had hung in its own protective case on the oarlock beside him and he used it one-handed, focusing the lenses with trial and error until a dark shadow was visible beyond the fog. A powerful beam of light appeared to emanate from the shadow, flashing with slow regularity.

"It's there Jim.." Arte breathed, handing the telescope to his partner. "Two degrees off starboard."

Seconds later a faint call came from up ahead. "Land ho!"

There was a delay of stunned silence, then the second boat spotter repeated the call, "Land ho!"

"Land ho." North sputtered. "Land ho, land ho!"

Some of the other men in the boat had begun to rouse, Edward North's excited chatter leaving them little choice. Arte was shifting onto the rowing seat next to Jim so that he could at least use his free, right arm to help pull, when a second call came from the first boat.

"Ahoy the ship!"

Arte and Jim looked at each other, speaking simultaneously. "The _ship!?_"

"Wish they'd make up their minds..." Jim muttered, the two men working together to bring their boat up even with the second lifeboat, only to surpass it, and draw up next to Eleanor's craft.

Eleanor was at the bow of her boat, her own telescope out and trained on the shadow 30 feet distant, that rose and fell with the waves. After a few minutes of silence she turned and nodded to the youngest crew member, a 13 year-old boy named Alonzo. "Give them a flare."

Nodding the boy stood, raised a small pistol above his head, closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger. With a minor explosion a bright red flame shot high into the air, arching towards the mystery vessel before it dissipated in the fog.

"Maybe she's deserted..." Arte suggested, turned halfway on the seat, never once taking his eyes off the vessel. The shape was hauntingly familiar.

"She's a clipper!" Henry Stanford shouted from the second life boat as they butted their craft against Jim and Arte's.

The closer they drew the more detail they could make out. The ship looked like it had been through hell. Seaweed and other flotsam lined the portholes, part of the bowsprit had been snapped off and was dangling by a thin line of rope, swaying back and forth as the ship moaned and creaked.

Eleanor felt her heart starting to pound, harder and faster than it had in even the worst of the storm. She backed down from the bow her lifeboat slowly, reaching out a hand that Ian Haversham grabbed, supporting her as she continued to back away. Arte's attention was drawn by the motion and he rocked to his feet alarmed. Eleanor was pale and sweating. She looked horrified, as if she'd seen a ghost.

"The sails are gone!" One of the crewmen shouted, pointing at the barren yards.

"The lifeboats too!" Another shouted.

"It's not possible..." Arte whispered, his eyes trained fully on Eleanor's frozen face and the realization that she had come to before any of the rest of them. "It's just not possible."

"What's not-"

"Jim...that's _The Flying Cloud._"


	8. Chapter 7

Day 25 Aboard - 2 days before the storm

"Accounting for the wind, for the draft, and the temporary loss of my sails yesterday we should still be on course. Here."

"Southern Africa..."

"Well a thousand miles distant, yes. I would say we are parallel to this bit here."

"Damara land." Arte leaned an elbow down on the map spread out before them, replacing the hand that had been keeping the paper from flapping in the wind. He was fascinated by the feeling the country created in him. He and Jim West had visited incalculable numbers of tiny towns, teeming cities, and deserted prairies in their years of service together. Acted as guide to countless dignitaries from varying lands.

But never one from Africa. The parts of the continent that hadn't been colonized by one nation or another, remained a great mystery. This left gaps, such as the one under the words Damara Land, that promised unexplored territory...the undiscovered country.

"You know, it's not much bigger than my thumb...but that empty space there could some day be a great city. Or a diamond mine. Or the nameless region from which comes the next revolutionary, or world leader." As Arte daydreamed out loud Eleanor began to smile, then laugh. Arte couldn't tell if she was laughing at his whimsy or delighting in his idealism and paused, smiling himself.

"Well one never knows..." He qualified before he spread his fingers over the map as if presenting the wild continent to Eleanor as a gift. "Have you seen a giraffe, the great African elephant, the rhinoceros?"

Eleanor was nodding, smiling at him still. She had always loved this part of Arte's letters. When he went off on a spree of the imagination, creating or recreating the wonders of the world with only paper and ink. When she had invited him to join her she had been most looking forward to just these sorts of conversations.

"They are the most peculiar animals I've ever seen and-" Arte interrupted himself with a burst of energy, and nearly choked as he said, "The ostrich! Have you seen it?" Arte asked, and to Eleanor's rapid shaking of the head he grinned and straightened, backing away from the table.

"They are birds, but flightless animals. They flock like any other bird, but on the ground. This tall...a foot taller than I am, easily." Arte said, lifting his hand to about six and half feet off the deck before he threw both arms out to the sides. "Great, heavy, awkward wings with giant floppy feathers coming out of a rounded body. A bird with feathers, but incapable of flying!" He laughed at the absurdity of the animal, aware that his waving his arms about had attracted the attention of most of those on deck.

"It can't fly, so it must of course run and have a way to defend itself and its eggs, its young. These eggs, Eleanor.." And he stepped back to the table quickly his hands forming around an imaginary ball that was almost the size and shape of her head. "Giants."

He backed away once more, smoothing his hands against his vest as he struggled to generate the right words to describe the animal.

"The creature's neck can raise its head to almost nine feet above the ground. A tiny head and beak sits on this great trunk, but they defend themselves with their feet. Powerful, deadly, gnarled chicken legs. I've seen men riding these animals like they would horses." Arte shook his head, almost breathless with the telling. "If something so phenomenally bizarre and contradictory can exist and thrive on that continent, and on no other, what other wonders are there?"

Arte perched on the corner of the mapping table grinning down at Eleanor. "Rivers filled with fish we've never seen. Skies alive with an alien aviary of indescribable beauty." He leaned in toward her, watching blue eyes that were alight with wonder. "Great, magnificently powerful beasts towering over man."

Eleanor grinned, breathing faster, but not moving away as he drew even closer.

"Mystic canyons, and mountaintop villages swallowed by time..." His lips drew nearer, bright brown eyes seeming to engulf her until she closed her own, willing him to make the final move.

"Uh..ahem."

Arte had nearly closed the distance entirely when someone cleared his throat from the other side of the table.

"Excuse me Arte but..." Jim smiled broadly, his hands behind his back as he stood rocking back on his heels. "The chef wanted me to let you know...dinner is served."

Jim gave a little bow and Arte followed his grinning form as he left, with a dark and ugly sneer, unfortunately missing the smile and deep blush that colored Eleanor's cheeks.

She cleared her throat a minute later to regain his attention, reaching out to the scatter of papers on the table. They had chosen to chart their next few days out on the deck, but the maps were too valuable to leave unattended there, even on a day with no clouds in sight.

Arte reached for the rest of the materials they had been using, and followed Eleanor to her cabin door. She stopped there, froze for a moment then turned and creased her brows at Artemus. He returned the look, confused, then checked behind him wondering if she hadn't seen something over his shoulder. The deck was deserted but for the men on regular duty.

He was pursing his lips to form a question when Eleanor took in a breath. "I have a proposition." She said, then smirked, clearly immensely pleased with herself.

It wasn't until after they had finished the afternoon meal with the rest of the men that Artemus discovered what that proposition was.

* * *

"We had to have gone at least 40 miles, 12 leagues!" Eleanor insisted, staring in awe from her position on the lifeboat at the vessel that was as familiar to her as her own face, and yet it couldn't be the _Cloud_.

The men in the boats around her were staring as well. Some up at the boat in wonder, others at her with a mix of bafflement, fear and in some she saw..most disheartening in the faces of Jim West and Artemus Gordon, pity.

Eleanor still had her compass clutched in her hands. Until the moment they had butted up along side the _Cloud _the compass had behaved normally. They had been heading towards the lighthouse, or whatever the mysterious light had been, and on occasion their course had wavered but "...we were traveling almost entirely west, southwest."

Arte could feel a pressure in his chest, a slow steady push that was building every time he looked up to the clipper. It was panic. Uncontrollable, irrational fear. The sort of terror that lead otherwise calm, authoritative and clear minded men to turn against one another in times when unity was needed most.

He'd experienced it plenty. Heaven knew, with the phenomenon's that he and Jim West had seen in the past... Dr. Loveless and his endless destructive creations, endless only because he refused to die. Materials that made corpses glow, mad men who could create earthquakes on a whim, or brainwash men into killing other men with only light and sound. Plagues that could instantly paralyze a human body, leaving entire towns frozen in their tracks. Doors that lead into worlds fueled by the imagination and beings that appeared to have come from the stars in flying plates.

And while each new terror proved in the end to be, if not explainable, at least conquerable, it didn't stop Arte from feeling that same panic when the next terrifying specter arose.

From behind where Arte stood Jim finally spoke. Unlike most of the men, West was looking away from the ship, squinting his eyes as he peered as far into the fog that surrounded them as he could. "How big would you say this storm is?"

Several heads turned, Eleanor's the last to do so, scanning the untouched canvas of gray enveloping them.

Arte shook his head, his right arm shrugging where his shoulder couldn't. "There's no way to calculate that, Jim, I..."

"There is a way..." Eleanor said softly, then looked up to the towering hull of the _Cloud_. "I would need my charts, we need to go back aboard."

One of the men spoke from out of the fog. "I thought the reason we left was because the pumps weren't working."

"Three of them were still in operation..." Carl Lenier spoke. He had been in Jim and Arte's boat with his nephew, and both men were now nodding together. "We knew that three would not keep her afloat during the storm..." Carl explained, his French accent at odds with his gruff appearance. "...but in this calm..."

"A calm that may not last much longer..." Arte said.

"That's what I'm getting at Arte." Jim said, jabbing a finger at the air in Gordon's direction. "I've never been in a hurricane, but I've seen plenty of storms on land. Never once has there been as dense a fog as this in a storm as violent as that one."

Eleanor nodded, even as she was directing her men to move her boat closer to the net that they had used to climb down to the lifeboats four hours earlier. "Quite right, Mr. West. This fog is entirely out of sorts with what would be found in the eye of a hurricane. We should be seeing clear skies, Artemus, and a great wall of clouds around us. Not this."

Arte sighed, knowing that any other protest would be pointless. Already Eleanor had been hoisted up the net as far as the men could get her, and was finding hand and foot holds for the rest of her climb. Ian Haversham had found his own purchase a few feet away and was quickly scaling the net so that he could pull Eleanor aboard.

The other men were standing in the boats, or positioning them to go back aboard. It seemed the decision had been made, but Arte couldn't shake the dread.

"This is a bad idea, Jim..." He said, even as he sat back down behind the right-hand oar. "I don't know why or how I know, but I know, we shouldn't be going back aboard that ship."

Jim's eyes widened, his eyebrows leaping to his hair line before he slowly turned to face the man that he had the night before been intent on killing. He was starting to feel that way again, and gave Arte a mildly controlled smile, chuckling intently. "Well, I'm not leavin' ya down here, Arte. The boat might spring a leak, and you'd drown."

Knowing that Arte would need help climbing with just one free hand Jim waited until the rest of the men had left their lifeboat before he lashed the craft to the net. Climbing to Arte's left with one hand tightly dug into the waist band of his pants, Jim and Arte pulled up together with their arms, repositioned their feet, then pulled up again, a gangly but efficient four-footed, two-armed ape.

"You know, I had been under the impression...that you were enjoying this trip..." Arte muttered, in between each effort.

"Oh...I was Arte..." Jim grunted just as his hand impacted the damp wood of the railing. He hung there for a second expecting some help from above, but it didn't come. "That was until you steered us into a hurricane. Hang here for a minute, will ya." And before Arte could respond Jim swung his leg up, hooked his foot over the railing and rolled until his feet had hit the deck.

He swung a hand down quickly, grabbed Arte's collar and pulled bringing his friend and partner up to where he could make the same move, keeping hold of his shirt until Arte's feet were on the deck as well.

"That was unkind, Jim." Arte said, then both men straightened and turned...only to be blinded with sun light and the glaring reflection of a perfectly blue sky. A fresh breeze wafted against them like a hand bearing a cool cloth, the fog vanished. Above them the sails snapped and pulled against the wind, entirely whole and untouched. Even the Creely sails were fully furled and taut.

Arte felt the panic and the fear and the dread starting to rise, threatening to choke the breath out of him. Jim appeared to be just as terrified.

"Okay, Arte." Jim said, turning in a careful circle. Even the lifeboats had been instantly returned to the sponsons that housed them, the protective tarps in place. "Do we steal a life boat or do we jump?"

Arte turned in a similar circle, reaching out his hands to clasp the railing and realizing a second later that both arms were free, of binding and of pain. He snapped his eyes up to Jim's brow only to find the bandage gone, and no sign of the trauma he had suffered.

He turned his back to the railing and swallowed hard.

"Jump...we should jump."


	9. Chapter 8

Day 25 Aboard - 2 Days before the storm

The noon meal finished, Eleanor had invited what she might have called her command staff to join her in her cabin for an important meeting.

Thirty minutes after the invitation had been given Artemus Gordon, Jim West, Ship's Doctor Hadrien Lieben, Ship's Engineer Carl Lenier, and Bosun Ian Haversham were in a semi-circle in front of the small writing table and chair that Eleanor used as a desk. The lady herself stood behind the chair facing them with a private smile on her face.

"Gentlemen, I thank you for coming." She began, waiting for the acknowledgements that each man gave before she raised a hand. "Not only to this meeting, but on this voyage. I specifically asked each of you to journey with me, each for very different reasons..." she added, meeting Arte's eyes for only a second before she continued. "All of you knew that this would be the final journey for the _Cloud_, and how important it was to me. I...may not always act it, but I am an old woman; aside from my children, the _Cloud_ is the little that I have left and I intended this journey to be my last memory of her.

The sails that my husband and I designed, once we've proven their capability to the world, will, I hope, be a marketable asset in which _all_ of you will have a share. For, without you gentlemen I could hardly have tested them."

This came as a surprise to all of the men but Artemus, and he watched the reactions of the others with a delighted smile on his face. After only glancing at the blueprints the first time Artemus had believed the sails would not only succeed in increasing the average speed of the clipper ship, but provide Eleanor with enough capital to form a company around them. The suggestion that her 'officers' act as board members if they wished to, had been his.

"Now," Eleanor continued, folding her hands together. "While the ultimate goal has always been to reach San Francisco in under 89 days, therefore beating the previous record held by _The Flying Cloud_ I had never set a precise number of days by which I intended to beat that record. If we were to continue on our current course, without any alterations, and accounting for some expected inclement weather, I have calculated that we would arrive in San Francisco...in 34 days."

This announcement was met with a sudden cacophony of celebratory noise. Arte laughed and clapped his hands together, minutes before Jim slapped his own hands on Arte's shoulders and shook him vigorously. Lieben and Lenier shook hands, loudly congratulating one another and Ian Haversham let out a jubilant, "Yeehaw!"

Eleanor was the next to receive congratulations, and from all of them at once. Not a man amongst them would have said then, or ever, that she looked like a woman of 50 years. Not more than a young girl seeing her dreams come true.

"Thank you, gentlemen." She whispered, wiping at her face and what might have been tears. She pressed her palms against the flames in her cheeks then took a deep breath, grinning again. "I thank you, truly. But before we go too far I have a request. And not a small one either."

As the room grew gradually quiet again Eleanor bent over the map spread before her. "This is Southern Africa gentlemen, and this is approximately where we are today." She paused, swallowed, then took a deep breath. "By eight bells of the afternoon watch we will have forfeited our chance to sail to the British colony Walfish Bay located between Damara Land and Great Namaqua Land and to set foot on the great and wild continent of Africa." With her finger resting just above the small square that marked the colony Eleanor studied the faces of the men before her and waited.

Ian was the first to speak, pulling his hat off his head, before he bent over the map. "Pardon, Mrs. Creely, but how long would that take?"

"Eight days there and an added five days before we rejoin our previously plotted journey. If we spend four days docked, re-stocking and perhaps seeing a small bit of the country, we add only thirteen days to our total. We would reach San Francisco in 64 days.

Again she waited as each man considered. It would be a reduced victory for _The Cloud, _her crew and the Creely Sails, but still a clear victory by anyone's standards. Further, having an entire colony of British citizens note and record the arrival of the _Flying Cloud_ on the eastern coast of Africa only 25 days after she had left New York could lead to business from not only the Americas, but the Olde Country as well.

She didn't feel the need to explain this, knowing each of the men would come to the conclusion on their own.

She was intentionally avoiding meeting Artemus Gordon's gaze. She could already feel his eyes boring into her but until all the men present were in agreement she couldn't look. She didn't want to see him disappointed.

Jim West wasn't likely to object. He stood smirking, observing the others, with his arms casually crossed over his chest. Dr. Lieben, the man who had stood by her husband's side in his final hours, and by her's during his burial, was calculating distance and time in his head. She knew he would appreciate a visit to an established colony where he could freshen his supplies. Lenier too would be undoubtedly happy to put in. The mishap the day before with the Creely sail cable snapping was reason enough to consider re-supplying soon.

The biggest, in fact, only argument she was expecting would come from Haversham and she watched him closely as he poured over the map.

After a few moments more of careful consideration Ian straightened and scratched at the thick red hair that always bothered him at his neck.

"I'm agreed." He said finally, and every man there added his unanimous vote seconds later.

Artemus was grinning when Eleanor finally beamed at him. She felt her heart swell at the joy in his eyes. It meant the world to have given him this gift, and more still for him to accept it. "Wonderful..." She said, after taking a deep breath. "Mr. Gordon, Mr. West, if you'll come with me to the helm. Ian, you will inform the men of our course change. Mr. Lenier, Mr. Lieben if you'll be good enough to inform the cook, and amongst you create a shopping list over the next few days."

Lieben snapped his heels together and bowed before leaving, holding the door for Lenier before striking up a rapid conversation that exploded with accents and accidental slips into their native tongues. Ian left after giving Eleanor a quiet salute and moments later his boisterous voice could be heard barking orders.

The three that remained laughed at Ian's own special way of showing excitement and left the room together, James leading the way. Artemus gave a slight bow and offered Eleanor his arm, guiding her to the door but stopping her before she could exit.

As she turned to face him Arte placed his open palms on her shoulders and ducked his head to meet her eyes. He took a breath, a thousand words wishing to pour out, but only two made it. "Thank you.." He told her softly, then bent toward her lips.

"Uh...Arte...that's seven bells. We haven't much time...?"

Eleanor giggled, and placed an understanding hand against Artemus's cheek, where he had halted mid-kiss, then lead the way out of her cabin and up to the helm.

Arte followed far less amused, muttering several comments of ill-will while glaring daggers at his partner.

On deck the world seemed to have acclimated to their mood. There was a bright glow to the boards that formed the aged skin of _The Flying Cloud_, and the azure blue of the sky was made only deeper by the sprinkling of white clouds on the horizon.

After a brief conference Artemus and Eleanor made the final adjustments to their new course heading. "Mr. West, I will need your help with my sails..." Eleanor called, going to the crank mechanism that operated them. "Mr. Gordon...our new heading if you please."

With a boyish grin Arte looked out to the horizon and whispered, "Africa ho." before he spun the wheel.

* * *

"Artemus! It's as if we never left!"

His escape plan temporarily foiled Arte shared a look with Jim, both men still wild-eyed, before Arte nodded and quietly said, "Yeah...?"

With several maps in her hands Eleanor stood just outside her cabin door, surveying her vessel in one slow all consuming sweep. "We've been given a second chance..." She whispered and Arte pushed towards her from the railing. "Don't you see? It was a mistake to have changed our course." She continued. "We could hardly have known the storm was there, we could hardly have expected it. But now we know. This time...we...we simply stick to our course."

Arte reached her and carefully took her elbow. Jim, who had followed close behind, moved to her other side and the two men walked her back into her cabin, guiding her gently into the chair behind her desk. She still clutched the maps in her hands. Arte would have taken them from her but her grip was so severe, the paper would have easily torn. Instead he took a knee in front of her, holding her wrist gently.

"Eleanor...I don't think any of this is real." Arte said, not even sure what he was saying, or what prompted him to say it. As far as he was concerned it was perfectly real. His shoulder felt as whole as it ever had, Jim appeared to be back to perfect health. The exhaustion that had been plainly evident in all of them was gone. The ship herself was perfectly seaworthy.

"Arte..." Jim said, staring through the open door of Eleanor's cabin.

Arte didn't look away from Eleanor's distracted gaze to say "What is it, Jim?"

"I have an idea. I won't be long." He promised, then left, quietly closing the door behind him.

"Eleanor-"

"It's Josiah, Arte. I can feel him here." Eleanor Creely finally met Arte's eyes, her face intent and earnest as she spoke. "I felt his presence just before we abandoned the ship. I could feel him, standing behind me. I thought then that he was giving his blessing. That he was promising to stay with the ship but...now I see. He was looking after it until we came back."

The constant crushing sensation in his chest that had stayed with him from the moment the _Cloud _floated into view turned into a spiking pain that traveled down his spine. "Eleanor..." He pleaded quietly. "Josiah is dead. He's been dead for three years. He can no more be here, than.." Than what, Arte? Than we can be aboard a ship that we abandoned and tried to escape, that now looks as new as she did the first day you stepped aboard her in 1853? It can't be, he thought. It just simply can not be.

Eleanor clucked at him, her hand laying against his cheek gently. "Artemus. You're so concerned for nothing."

Arte felt his heart sink. She was far too calm, far too assured of herself for the situation. He was losing her.

"Its just a change in plans." She said, soothingly. "We'll keep to our course. I know its a disappointment to miss Africa but, perhaps another voyage."

With a patronizing smile Eleanor rose and crossed the room. Beside the door a pencil drawing of Josiah Creely hung where it always had for three years. Quietly Eleanor kissed her finger tips and pressed them against the glass protecting the portrait then left the room, the door and Arte's mouth hanging open.

* * *

2 Days Later

"Jim! Behind you!" Arte screamed over the noise, his words reaching the younger man seconds before the flying saber would have, if Jim hadn't tossed himself out of the way. The pirate who had thrown the blade had to have been the second-in-command of the band of brigands swarming over the deck of the badly crippled _Cloud_. Definitely not the captain, but every order he gave was immediately followed by his men.

Two of those men had Arte cornered. He'd managed to find a dulled saber on a decorative plaque in Eleanor's cabin, and the second saber he wielded had belonged to the first pirate he had dispatched. He called it a saber, but with it's wide curving blade and simplified hand guard it had to be something else. The reduced weight and shortened length was throwing off his already weakened right hand and every fourth or fifth strike from his opponents had found flesh.

"You fight with no form, sir!" Arte growled angrily, then advanced rapidly on the enemy in front of him, dodging the swipe from the man behind, before running his forward opponent through to the hilt. The blade wasn't terribly sharp, but the tip still did its job.

The broader blade in his left hand proved to be well honed and a single back handed slash opened part of the torso of his second opponent, spilling his blood over the already red washed deck. Arte looked to the traditional saber in his right hand, then quickly abandoned it, letting the now dead man crumble to the floor. He borrowed the sword belonging to the deceased with a curt, "Thank you." before going after the man attempting to garrote Henry Stanford.

Arte had sliced the man once across the shoulder blades before his eye caught the blackened maw of a cannon on the deck of the pirate ship moored to the clipper. Twelve of the fifteen lines thrown by the unwelcome boarding party had been cut, but not enough to free the _Cloud_, and the cannoneers behind the barrel appeared quite ready to fire.

"Cannon! Cannon!" Arte screamed, trying to direct the warning to every crew member, despite the smoke, the crackle of flames, the constant chiming of blades and above the scores of men's voices in battle, the occasional chilling gun shot.

Some of the men heard him in time.

Arte managed to duck into the doorwell of Eleanor's cabin the moment of the blast. The mouth of the barrel had been twice the size of anything he had seen before, and its first shot had been the one to cripple the _Flying Cloud _by taking out the top two thirds of the main mast. One solid shot sent expertly into their midst as the crew of the _Cloud _struggled, against the wind, to escape.

This time however, it wasn't solid shot, but grape. Thousands of tiny steel balls, nails and other debris exploded over the middle of the deck of the clipper ship turning men into clouds of red mist and knocking down every body in its path.

Even behind the meager shelter of the door frame Artemus felt a ball tear a chunk out of his side, something much smaller embedding itself into his ankle. Nails, bits of glass and even a fork smacked into the door above his head, but none, thank Heaven, went through.

He pushed to his feet, turning toward the carnage. Three of their own lay in the middle of the impact zone, clearly dead. He recognized Liam immediately. Someone began to moan woefully as Arte stumbled forward, barely blocking a clumsy blow from a pirate that had also been wounded. Before Arte could return the attack the pirate fell, already dead, murdered by his own.

Arte struggled on, feeling blood start to trickle down his rib cage. He saw Ian Haversham using a repelling hook to fight off a man armed with a spear of wood broken off the mast. Two other pirates had gotten their hands on young Alvarez and were carrying the struggling teen towards their own ship. Sam Coulter and Edward North were on them in seconds, all five going down in a flailing heap of limbs.

Another step and the wound on his side flared painfully, causing him to stumble to a halt, just in time to miss being crushed by the falling body of a pirate with a very familiar bullet hole in his back. Seconds later Jim dropped to the deck, his hide-away gun in one hand still smoking.

Jim swiped at the cut that crossed his cheek, sending a cascade of blood down his chin. He looked with disgust at the smear of red on his hand.

"I don't think we're gonna win this one, Arte." He said, breathing heavily, squinting through the smoke that seemed to be getting thicker. "We need to get lifeboats in the water, hide out in this mist somehow."

Arte took a deep breath, winced at the pull in his side, then nodded. "I can get to the lifeboat on the stern, but we'll need more if we're going to evacuate every man."

Jim bowed his head for a moment, wiping at the sweat on his brow and finding that it wasn't only sweat, but blood, someone else's. "We may not have a choice."


	10. Chapter 9

Arte and Jim separated, West heading back towards the fracus, Arte toward the stairs that lead up to the helm. Thanks to the lanterns being shot out the area was cast in shadow. Arte didn't remember day becoming night, he didn't remember the desperate race for survival turning into a war. There was only the memory of a faint, disbelieving hope, and then the sight of the pirate vessel and the cannon, and that first perfect arch of the cannon ball.

Now they were once again giving up the fine lady that they had fought for, some even died for.

It felt hauntingly familiar.

Tossing the two cutlasses to the deck, Arte tore the canvas cover from the life boat and operated the hand crank that would pull the boat away from the deck and over the side.

Had Eleanor been right, he wondered? Was Josiah Creely's spirit in fact connected with the vessel such that he was there, even in that moment, caring for _The Cloud_. If they escaped disaster once again would they find their way back. Would the world revert back to the way it was before the fateful turn to Africa, and the second, even more fateful decision to continue on their original course.

With the lifeboat in position, he began to turn the lowering crank and knew instantly that it would take too long. The cries from the deck were growing more and more sparse and it wouldn't be much longer before the pirate-in-charge noticed that the Captain's quarters were unguarded.

Gritting his teeth, pressing a hand hard down on the wound at his side Arte stepped back and kicked at the safety mechanism, once, twice, before it snapped free of the crank and the boat plunged to the ocean's surface fifteen feet below.

When he pulled his hand away from his side to scoop up the cutlasses again it was slick with blood, his shirt now plastered against him. No time, he thought. "No time..." He rushed to the stairs again, ignoring the throbbing that weakened his ankle, stumbling down the last few steps and throwing himself at the door to Eleanor's cabin.

She sat inside, tucked into a corner of her bed, hidden by blankets and the canopy. Right where he had left her.

"Eleanor..." He called to her, trying to be soothing, but knowing he didn't have the time for it. "We have to leave."

Her eyes were wide, her fingers playing endlessly with the curls at the base of her neck. The moment he spoke she complied, like a lost child. The last vestiges of sanity that she had been clinging to in the final few days seemed to have left her when the pirates attacked and she had become this compliant shadow of herself. It was better, he thought, than having her fight him.

Before he could get her to the door it swung open. A delighted, shadowy snarl sat atop the elaborate wardrobe of the second-in-command of the pirate vessel and Arte suddenly wanted nothing more than to cut that smile, and the head attached to it, clean off. With a guttural cry Arte charged with both cutlasses extended, meeting the pirate's single sabre in the inverted-V of his own crossed blades and forcing it downward even as he propelled the pirate backwards out of the cabin and onto the deck.

He loosed one blade as quickly as he could and swung it at the pirate's mid-section, closer to his opponent than he was accustomed. Not even waiting for the first blow to connect, his eyes focused on the other man's wrist, Arte swung his second blade blindly upward, aiming for the face, the neck, anything. The double bladed attack threw off his opponent and while he protected his belly, the pirate was unable to protect his head. Arte's blade sliced through skin at the top of the pirate's brow and a cut opened that cascaded blood into his eyes.

Having temporarily blinded his opponent Arte risked stepping even closer, swung the guard of his right hand blade and hit the pirate over the head as hard as he could. The brigand went down moaning and Arte turned back to the cabin door. Eleanor stood just inside it watching him, and waiting.

"Good girl.." He breathed before he grabbed her wrist and dragged her back into the room.

The drop from the top deck would be too far, and too risky to get to, but from the windows in her cabin...he needed rope. Maybe there was time to lower her.

"Arte!"

Gordon snapped his head to the door to catch a brief glimpse of West before Jim ducked under the leaping body of a pirate. Having missed his goal, the fiend sprawled on the floor of Eleanor's cabin and Jim wasted no time in picking him up by his tunic and ushering him back out again.

"The boat is down." Arte said.

"Haversham and North are overboard, I told them to swim to the stern. Can she jump?"

"I..." Arte began shaking his head.

From behind him he heard Eleanor say, "Yes."

Already she had opened the windows, and before he could do or say anything she had leaned into the opening and slipped out head first. Arte ran to the bank of glass as he heard the distant splash below. The lifeboat was already occupied by Haversham; Edward North and, to his relief, Alonzo Alvarez were in the water, the boy clinging to the side of the boat while Edward swam to the spot where Eleanor had hit. They had her in arms in seconds but Arte waited until he saw her head moving sluggishly before he turned away from the window.

"She's made it." He told his partner. "The others?"

Jim shook his head. "The doc, Carl and his nephew got another one of the life boats over the side." Jim shrugged, there was no way to know if they were free, away from the ship, or under attack. "If we don't leave now we may be out of luck."

"That's assuming we weren't already..." Arte said bitterly. A second later a bestial cry chilled him to the very bone. From where he had left him, the pirate second-in-command was howling bloody murder while he struggled to his feet.

The language he spoke was a mix of Spanish, French and something made up of grunts and clicks. None of it was intelligible to the two Secret Service men, but given the attention the pirate was paying to his now marred face it was clear that Arte had royally pissed him off.

"We should..." Jim started, then pointed toward the open window, pushing Arte ahead of him. Discarding his weapons Arte dove at the window, through it and into the numbing cold of the ocean, briefly losing consciousness before his body's need for air woke him, thrashing underwater. He fought hard for the surface, breaking it in the same instant that he felt thick hands digging into his shirt and shoulders, yanking him aboard the small craft.

Haversham hauled him up most of the way before Arte got his foot up on the rim and was dumped unceremoniously onto the seats. He was coughing and desperately trying to breathe at the same time, crawling out of the way so that they could haul Jim aboard too, when he noticed a midnight black, nearly naked African sitting in the far corner of the boat. He was so darkly skinned that Arte had been unable to see him before.

"What's he doing here?" Arte croaked.

Busily hauling up Jim, and then North, Haversham could only shake his head.

In the same moment the pirate leader had appeared above them on the deck of the helm, screaming epitaphs again, waving his sword above his head and struggling with something with his other arm.

Jim was already scrambling to pull one of the oars free of its traces and Arte reached for the other one.

"He sounds mad..." the older man commented, before seating himself on the rowing bench, deja vu hitting him like a brick.

Jim chuckled, bending at the waist to set his own oar in place, then suddenly jolted, a choking sound coming from his mouth. A half-second later there was a gunshot and Arte found himself stupidly looking to the source of the sound.

West stood frozen where he was for a few more seconds before his knees buckled and Arte caught him in time to protect his head.

Time seemed to slow and race all at once. Arte's hands were shaking as he cradled Jim in his arms, his fingers desperately in search of the wound. Jim's face was blank at first, then contorted in confusion, then pain as he struggled to breathe in.

Arte felt Jim's hand digging into his bicep, in regular intervals, leaving bruises that he couldn't feel. He found the wound a second later, high on West's back, bleeding profusely.

"Is he hit?" Harversham asked from behind him and Arte felt his voice crack as he shouted, "Row..ROW! Get us out of here."

The boat began to move a minute later and Arte's world narrowed to the paling face of his friend, the feel of the powerful hand digging into his arm.

"Jim...hang on!" Arte commanded, breathless. He was trying to peel Jim's wet jacket off with one hand, and keep him upright. At the same time they were rowing away from the only source of light for hundreds of miles and even if he could get a look at the wound, what good would it do. He managed to get one of Jim's arms free before he shook his head, apologizing over and over.

He didn't know what to do. He didn't know how to fix it, or make the bleeding stop. Jim's eyes were focused intently on his face and Arte could feel the monumental struggle going on inside his friend's body. Each breath took effort, and clouded Jim's eyes with pain. It rattled in his lungs and was exhaled, bloody, through his mouth. A fit of coughing overcame him and all Arte could do was hang on.

When it finally passed Jim was grabbing at Arte's collarbone, trembling as he tried to pull himself up.

"Lay still, Jim. You gotta lay still." Arte tried, but Jim kept struggling. The flow of blood against Arte's hand seemed to double and Arte finally decided to help him, rather than fight him and have him bleed out faster.

James West managed to get his legs underneath him on the bottom of the boat, resting on his knees, facing his friend, with fistfuls of Arte's shirt sleeves in his hands. With some of the pressure taken off his spine he could breathe a little easier and worked at getting oxygen into his lungs. Fighting to stay awake. Pushing the pain and the confusion and the panic to the side.

Right before he'd felt the hot poker punch through his shoulder blade he had seen it. He hadn't expected to see it again, hadn't even been thinking about it, and yet the moment he recognized it something clicked in his mind. Something finally made sense to him.

Before he got a chance to say a word to Arte he'd been back-shot and now he knew...he knew what Arte knew.

He didn't have much time.

"Arte..." He managed, getting the word out between gasps, swallowing saliva and blood, spitting more of it to the side. "S'lighthouse."

Arte didn't get it right away. Was panicked, or deafened by the battle, or Jim just hadn't tried hard enough. He felt a muscle seize up in his chest and pain flashed through him and he shifted one of his hands up until he had hold of Arte's arm and squeezed for dear life until the seizure passed. With the pain gone he was instantly weaker.

Struggling upright, he tried again.

"Lighthouse." Jim's lips contorted, trying to make the consonants sharper, forcing out more air to make it louder.

Artemus heard it that time and felt Jim's hand leave his left arm, saw him point out into the distance and caught the flash of light seconds before he felt Jim's head slump into his lap.

"Jim...Jim." Arte thrust his hands under lax arms, tried to force Jim upright, felt him sliding limply to one side and cried out in agony and frustration knowing in his soul that Jim was gone. Just, simply gone.

He wanted to wail, wanted to turn back to the captured _Flying Cloud_ and kill every man aboard her. He pulled, tugged and shifted until he was sitting in the mix of water and blood on the bottom of the boat with Jim leaning against him and listened for breath, knowing he wouldn't hear it anymore. The blood was no longer pushing against his hand. Jim's eyes were vacant and Arte clutched his friend to his chest and screamed at the heavens.

Ian Haversham never stopped rowing, and when Artemus Gordon screamed and Ed North shot to his feet, Ian shook his head hard and glared the younger man back down to his seat. Miserable, Ed sat for a few minutes, before he stood again and moved to take a seat next to his bosun, taking the other oar.

Without being told both men pointed the boat toward the light flashing in the distance, saying nothing as the thick fog rolled in.


	11. Chapter 10

Arte's eyes were nearly swollen shut and the skin on his face felt like a crust, covered in dried tears and salt water. His mind was no longer capable of feeling emotion or pain, his body numb and stuck, for all he knew, permanently in the position he had settled in when Jim...he didn't finish the thought, clutching Jim closer to him, refusing to let him go, even though he was already gone.

He didn't know how long the drumming had been going on, but he slowly became aware of it. Starting with the cadence of the oars the young African, the stowaway that Arte just barely remembered seeing in the boat in the moments before Jim was shot, had moved opposite of where he and Jim sat against the wall of the boat and was using the blade of his hands, his finger tips, and the padding under his thumb to create a steady thrumming beat. The wood under the waterline created a deeper sound than the wood of the seats, or of the railing, and the young man made use of the varying resonances, moving with casual grace.

At first there was only the drumming. A beat pattern that was so distinctive, so entirely alien, Arte knew he could only have heard it in one other place but didn't have the energy left to hunt down the memory.

Arte watched the boy's veined arms and long, dark, bony fingered hands that, despite their gangly appearance, never once tripped on the beat, or missed a stroke.

Then the boy parted thick lips and began to sing. With pitches that likened to the songs of the Natives back home, some of the notes only elongated cries or wails, the boy's song had no more than a half-dozen pitches in it but it rekindled something in the deadened center of Arte's being.

The words were equally as unrecognizable, but they were enunciated with purpose and focus. Without understanding a word of it Arte knew that this was a funeral song, that it was directed toward him, towards the memory of James West, and toward every person aboard their small life raft in mourning. The boy didn't seem bothered at all that no one joined him, nor was he discouraged from singing by any of the other men.

Arte felt some of the pressure in his chest lifting, and became entirely focused on the young African, the timbre of his voice, the way he cast down his eyes slightly, looking into the distance instead of at Arte.

Arte wondered how many times the boy had sung this song. How many loved ones he had lost and how this song came to be so well-known to him.

When the boy's voice began to crack the singing drifted, and there was only the hollow echo of his drumming, continuing into the night and lulling Artemus into a dream state where there was nothing but thick, white fog.

Ian Haversham had kept a close eye on the young African, ready to defend Mr. Gordon if the youth tried to attack. He was surprised to hear the boy start banging on the structure of the boat, even more surprised to hear the random banging transform into a recognizable beat.

When he realized that the beat of the song was based on the pace he was setting with the oars he settled a little more, and listened, only turning on occasion to make sure the lighthouse was still in sight.

In the front of the boat Alvarez, the young Spaniard, had been struggling to stay awake. Mrs. Creely, disturbed by Mr. Gordon's cries, had fidgeted uselessly on her seat until she saw Alonzo curled around himself and shivering in the corner. Her mothering instinct must have run deeper than the madness that had been creeping over her in the past few days, for in minutes she had wrapped her arms around the young man and sat cradling him for the rest of the night.

The song, the drumming, and what remained of Ian Haversham's energy were all gone by daybreak. Through the fog that surrounded them, allowing only the flash of the light house to be seen, Ian thought he might have heard other voices. Familiar calls, the sounds of another boat's oars slapping the water. A haunting cry. Then Ian succumbed to the desperate sleep that had enveloped all the others, slumping against the oars seconds before the prow of their boat bumped into something wooden, and much bigger.

* * *

James West woke to bright sunlight above and the ship gently rolling beneath him. He was flat on his back and could feel the rough weave of canvas under his fingers and realized a second later that he had been laid out on the surface of a hammock. The traditional shroud used to wrap the body of a sailor before burial at sea. The realization that he was alive collided in his mind with his memory of his own death, of the pirates and Arte, and of the lighthouse in the distance. And a voice, singing over and over again to endless drumming.

Pushing himself up by his elbows Jim scanned the deck. Only then did he realize that Arte was sitting Indian style next to him, his back turned and head bowed. They were alone, up near the helm, and the ocean around them was empty of ships. Just as it had been two days ago. Or was that today again.

Jim studied his friend's taut shoulders for a moment before he quietly said, "Arte..."

The tousled brown hair on his friend's head shifted with the wind as he turned, blood-shot brown eyes met Jim's bright green. Very awake, and very alive. Arte said, "Oh, thank God." in one burst of air and tipped over sideways onto the deck.

It wasn't quite the reaction he was expecting, but then, Jim thought, he and Artemus had effectively traveled farther beyond the realm of normal than ever before. Trying to predict anything about their future was a frustrating and pointless exercise.

Sitting up slowly West got a better look at the _Cloud. _The few crew members that were on deck lounged in groups, with no pretense of going about the work of the day, and he expected the rest would be below doing much the same.

Still laying on his back, Arte said, "I thought you were dead...I _knew _you were dead, and then I remembered the lighthouse. It led us back here, back to the ship the same way it did before. When we got aboard your wounds healed but you were still out..." Arte sat up, groaning softly, waving his hand in the air as he tried to explain, "...asleep, unconscious, dead...I didn't know. I thought...I'll just wait."

He finally looked at Jim and West could see how close Arte was to the breaking point, the despair still lingering behind the words that Artemus always shielded himself with. He considered for a moment then glanced down at the canvas sheet.

"And if I didn't wake up, you would...bury me at sea?" Jim asked, testing the waters, waiting to see if the strongest part of Arte was still alive in there somewhere. He started to lose hope when all he got in response at first was a look of weary anger from his friend.

Then slowly, finally, the old spark came to life, dimmed but there, in Arte's eyes.

"Can't have your bloated corpse stinking up the ship...now can I?" Arte offered, half-hearted.

Jim clasped a hand down onto Arte's shoulder and moved so that he was sitting next to him.

"I..." Arte started, shaking his head as he picked at something on his pant leg. "I can't go through that again, Jim."

West studied his friend for a moment, squinting in the bright sunlight, before he nodded.

"Eleanor's asleep. Most of the men are too tired or we would have a full-scale mutiny on our hands." Arte continued quietly.

"We haven't exhausted all our options.."

"No but by the time we do, how many of us will still be in our right minds?"

Jim thought for a bit again, before he asked, "Arte...have you ever heard of anything like this before? Any...haunted ships, or mysterious rotating lights or..."

Arte shook his head, "No, nothing...I...other than the _Dutchman_."

"_The Flying Dutchman?_"

"Yes, the ship said to be stuck sailing endlessly in the..." Arte froze for a second then turned to look at his partner, "The South Atlantic, off the coast of Africa for all time, serving a penance for a terrible sin. But Jim...it's a myth, a ghost story."

"What about the lighthouse?"

Arte was shaking his head again, desperately tearing through the dusty files of his mind for something. The only story he could come up with caused him to laugh slightly but there was no real connection.

"What?" Jim asked anyway.

Arte batted the idea away with a hand even as he explained, "Oh...In 1850 or so there was a lighthouse out on Minot's Ledge. A submerged line of rock had been responsible for great loss of life and property for almost 40 years. When they finally built a beacon there it lasted only one winter before the light house was washed away in a storm. Both lightkeepers perished."

"Another haunting..." Jim said, watching as Ian Haversham slowly wandered up from the hatchway that led to the crew cabins. He had a flask of something in his hands and was weaving on his feet as he strolled the deck.

"Yes, but Jim it's in Boston."

After a moment Arte asked, "Do you remember there being a young African kid in the boat?"

Jim thought about it and shrugged. "I remember singing..."

"And drumming." Arte nodded. "It was like that Cantombe, that Uruguayan slave dance I told you about."

Now both men were watching Haversham as he swayed, a deep baritone voice bubbling up from his throat, a bawdy sea shanty at his lips.

"A haunted lighthouse, the _Flying Cloud_ endlessly sailing the seas like she were haunted herself, Eleanor told me she had felt Josiah's spirit...this whole episode has been like...like we're being punished for something."

The drunken Bosun had made his winding way across the deck, stopping at the base of the stairs that lead up to the helm. He had to have been more intoxicated than Arte first thought, because the act of simply stepping up seemed to have stumped him.

"It's...cliché Arte." Jim said, and he was met with an almost offended look. It was as if he had called Arte a ham. "A racing ship meant for speed, suddenly caught in a gale that never ends. Most ships would have stowed sails at that point but..."

Arte nodded, "You don't stow the sails on a clipper."

Jim nodded in agreement then continued. "A ship ill-equipped to fend off any sort of attack encounters pirates armed to the teeth."

"An African boy suddenly on hand to woefully sing a song of mourning exactly like one I've heard before..." Arte agreed, finally catching on. "Like someone has read our minds and is taking our memories and weaving this mish-mash of a drama together with them."

"But who..." Jim said, asking the obvious question.

Haversham had managed the first few stairs, and had stopped to refresh himself from his flask.

"And how and why..I know Jim." Arte watched Ian smack his lips in satisfaction, then take the rest of the stairs. He swayed at the top, straightened his back and shoulders as he stumbled in a swaying bee-line for Arte and Jim, then lost his footing and sprawled a few feet away.

When Jim moved to help him, Ian put up a hand to stop him, and eventually righted himself. The flask, undamaged by his fall, was then offered and Jim took it, sniffed at what remained inside and took a swig. He handed it over to Arte, who drank as well, wincing at the bite of the stale liquor, before passing it back to its original owner.

"I would never drink on duty, gennlemen." Ian slurred, his eyes unevenly focused on the mouth of the flask. "But theese being unusual shircumstances...I have obliged myself."

Arte started to smile a bit at the usually unflappable bosun and Jim kept a steadying hand on the man's shoulder as he said, "We'll excuse it this once, Haversham. How fair the men?"

Ian's head wobbled on his neck as he thought, bleary eyed, his deep red hair sticking out at all angles. "Sleeping, waiting...reading."

"Reading?" Arte asked, surprised. He waited until Haversham had taken another drink before he asked. "Who would be reading at a time like this?"

"Lonzo..." Ian said, matter of fact, then took another drink.

"Alvarez?" Jim asked, surprised that the boy could read.

"Oh yes." Ian said, then prepared to take a drink, stopped himself, and offered the flask to Jim again.

As Jim tilted his head back to take what little was left of the alcohol Arte scanned the ocean. Something had changed a moment ago, something about their environment that didn't...there it was...a whale spout in the distance. Bigger than what he would have expected but they were in a part of the ocean he'd never before seen. Whales could be bigger here.

"And what is our little scholar reading?" Arte asked, smirking when Jim rattled the now drained flask in front of his face, then handed it back to Ian. The Irishmen took a long gulp from it, not even noticing it was empty.

A second spout sounded in the distance, louder than the first, and when Arte snapped his eyes towards it the ripple of water indicating a large whale just under the surface was closer too. They had to have encountered a pod of them. Maybe a good sign, an omen of some kind.

Ian considered the question that Arte had put to him, taking a few minutes to recall the title before he pursed his lips and enunciated, "Moby Dick."

Arte grabbed at Jim's arm and squeezed so hard Jim winced and glared at Gordon trying to pull away. Instead he froze when he saw the spout of water and air launching straight upward, almost to the top of the first sail, only yards from the ship.

"Jim, Moby Dick was written by Hermann Melville in 1851."

"Yeah..."

"It's about a giant, homicidal whale."

There eyes met seconds before the entire hull of the ship trembled under the impact of something almost as big as _The Flying Cloud_ and a whole lot meaner. Before the second impact Arte was running for the crew's quarters and Jim was leaping from the helm balcony, before scrambling into Eleanor's cabin in search of a harpoon.


	12. Chapter 11

Arte had never had reason to spend more than a few minutes with 13 year-old Alonzo Alvarez in the time that they had been aboard. As one of the ship's boys Alonzo spent most of his days working with the cook, or helping Doctor Lieben, or learning the skills of the trade under the tutelage of the other men.

He'd never heard the boy speaking outside of his native tongue though he had to have understood at least some English. The one conversation he remembered having with Alonzo had been entirely in Spanish. He had learned the boy's age, his birthplace of Mexico City and about his young mother, who was suppose to meet him upon his return in San Francisco.

He knew nothing else about young Alvarez, but that was about to change. If only Arte could find him.

He'd gone tearing down the hatch and into the first room near the stairs before he realized he didn't know where Alvarez had been assigned to bunk. Arte went running down the hall, the space quickly filling with the voices of 20 some disgruntled men, throwing doors open but finding no Alvarez.

He hadn't thought to ask Haversham where the boy would be. The man was so intoxicated, Arte didn't know if he would have gotten a clear answer out of him anyway. Gordon paused for a moment to think, felt the second impact of the whale, a whale for heaven's sake attacking their vessel, it was the most unbelievable bit of fiction. "No wonder his book hasn't sold..." Arte muttered before he worked his way to the second hatch and went down to the lowest deck.

"Alonzo!"

The bilge and the hold of the clipper occupied the same open space. The hold was a separate platform broken up by wooden cages in which supplies could be safely stored, with the occasional ladder or set of stairs going down to the keel of the ship where the bilge pumps operated. Unlike the mid-deck, however, it wasn't closed off and there were plenty of gaps between the hold level and the bottom of the ship where a young boy could make himself a private hiding place. Tearing down the narrow aisles of the hold Arte continued to shout the boy's name, telling him in Spanish that he wasn't in trouble, but needed to come out right away.

The hull groaned and the ship shuddered, rocking the crates and barrels on their bases near where Arte stood, reminding him that this wasn't the place to be if the ship was unsteady.

"Ahora, Alonzo!" Arte growled loudly, waiting for a response as a teeth rattling bellow came from the port side of the hull. "Sofocar el libro!"

Another bellow from the beast began, the boards of the hull moaning and grating as if the whale were scraping lengthwise along the clipper. In some places Arte could hear water starting to trickle along the wood where the boards had been forced apart too far. "Alvarez, Deténgase!" Arte shouted, eyeing a cask of wine that had been strapped precariously into a corner high above his head. It had been rocking before, and now was very close to jumping from the ropes that held it. He moved away from it, desperately searching the corners and crannies and nooks.

He'd gone all the way to the bow, turned around and was running towards the stern when the whale hit the ship, head on or so it seemed. The impact knocked him sideways into a railing, kicking the breath from his lungs but showing him where Alonzo was hiding. Two feet below, curled into the sill of an oversized porthole, his ears stuffed with cloth.

Arte dragged air into stubborn lungs, winced at the bruises, more bruises, that were forming against his rib cage and ducked his head under the railing, hanging from one arm while he reached out the other to tug at the cloth effectively rendering the boy deaf. This time, they both heard the anguished bellow of the whale.

"Dame el libro, Alonzo." Arte said, holding out his hand, smiling as kindly as he could while grinding his teeth angrily. The boy was confused and wide-eyed and meekly handed over the tome. "Gracias." Arte said, as graciously as possible.

The whale's cry died as Arte looked at the cover of the book, sneering at the graphic etching of a great white beast attacking a tiny fishing vessel that dominated the cover. "Herman Melville.." He muttered with disgust before he tucked the book into his vest and held his hand out to the boy. "Ven comigo," he said, taking the boy's arm and hoisting him up to the walkway. "We have some talking to do, young man."

* * *

Out on deck Arte found Jim West and a handful of other crew members standing at the rails on either side, staring down at the ocean, armed with axes, harpoons and the one or two firearms on the ship. With one hand at the base of the boy's neck, the other clutching the offending novel, Arte marched his charge towards his embattled crew mates, feeling the nervous tension radiating from the boy through his shoulder blades.

"Jim!" He shouted, his volume dropping as he drew closer. "I don't know how its been happening, but I think I may have an answer." He then held up the book as proof, handing it to West.

Jim considered the simple object constructed of unassuming paper, the garish drawing on the cover, the tattered pages. He looked to Arte and considered that his judgement of his partner's sanity might have been premature and a second opinion might be called for. "A book, Arte?"

With a knowing smirk Arte pushed his hands against Alonzo's ears, then leaned closer to Jim so that he could drop his volume further. "Where did the whale go, Jim? The very minute I found the boy and distracted him from the story, the whale disappeared, didn't it?"

Jim looked to the calm ocean, then the men standing about him, armed as much as possible, who had up until that moment been once more fighting for their lives. "Yeah but Arte...a book?"

"Power of the imagination?" Arte offered, shrugging dramatically. "Jim I don't have it all figured...and for all I know I could be wrong...but I want you to hear me out."

"Okay.."

"But first I have to find his stash." Arte said, releasing the boy's ears.

"Okay..."

"You might get the ship turned around.." Arte offered.

With a careful, patronizing smile Jim patted Arte's shoulder and winked, appearing to be in agreement. Arte didn't like the look, but he had other things to worry about. Convincing Jim that he hadn't lost it would come later. Primarily once Arte himself was sure he hadn't lost it.

Together he and Alonzo went to the small cabin that Alvarez shared with the other ship's boy, Liam, and the younger crew members Edward North, Henry Stanford and Jacob Lenier. There, tucked away in a small chest under his hammock were Alonzo's treasures. Almost twenty books and novels carefully packed, some of them wrapped in brown paper and tied with ribbons.

"Alonzo...¿de dónde salieron?" He asked. Where did these come?

The boy shrugged, his fingers playing at the lip of the chest. From his grandfather, he explained in Spanish, a man who went to America a long time ago. His mother had been only a small child when her father left, promising to find a place for their family to live, then disappearing entirely. There had been some rumors that he had fought in a great war, the American Civil War, Arte reasoned, but they'd had no way of confirming it. The books were all that his mother could carry with her when she left Mexico and she had read them to her son as he grew, teaching him to read from them as well. All of them were in Spanish, including a small well used Bible.

As Arte translated each title the events of the past few days began to make more and more sense, and at the same time raise more and more questions.

"You've been reading these the whole trip?" Arte asked. To his surprise the boy ducked his head.

"I wasn't supposed to..." He said in Spanish, "...but sometimes Senor Thacker would get so mad at me he would chase me from the kitchen. I went to the porthole with my book and read until he wasn't mad anymore."

Arte chuckled and carefully shut the lid of the sea chest. A brass plaque on the front had the initials N.V. stamped into it in a crude but efficient hand. The sort of plaque that a poor man could afford.

"Was this your grandfather's chest?" Arte asked, and the boy nodded. Arte studied him for a moment then said, "You're not really 13 are you?"

Dark brown eyes studied him carefully for a moment before the boy shook his head and held up ten fingers.

Arte smiled at his bravery and honesty and patted Alonzo on the back before he lifted the sea chest.

"I've got an idea, Master Alvarez, that I think you might like. But you'll have to trust me."

Arte put his hand out, palm up and waited. Only when Alonzo took the hand and shook it like he really was 13 did Arte lead the way from the cabin.

* * *

The evening that followed was tense.

Sobering Ian Haversham, motivating the disheartened crew back into action and rousing Eleanor kept them busy for most of the afternoon. The decision to head back to New York as fast as possible was made between Jim and Arte fairly quickly. The crew, after some convincing, took the orders to heart and began turning the vessel. The problem was that Artemus wasn't a navigator, and didn't have the knowledge that Eleanor Creely did. Other than turning the vessel to the north he couldn't speak to the winds or currents that would get them back home.

There were maps and charts in her quarters that gave Gordon a rough idea of which direction to point the helm but they would need Eleanor awake, alert, and if possible, sound of mind, if they expected to get back to the US in one piece.

Under the guise of feeding her a bowl of broth Arte was able to get Eleanor upright in her bed and eating. A slow night of quiet, meaningless chatter, broken by occasional naps wherein Eleanor slept and Artemus worked on his theory that would explain the hopefully ended nightmare, turned into a still, almost breezeless morning where only the Creely sails could be counted on to catch wind. Without them _The Flying Cloud _would have been stranded.

With Eleanor's help and the myriad of nautical text books in her cabin Arte and Jim plotted out the next few weeks, creating a loose arch on the map that would get them back into US waters via Canada.

"Four weeks." Arte announced, throwing his pencil at the jottings he had made before rubbing sleepless eyes. "It may not be the best we can hope for but it's the safest estimate."

"We're moving, Arte, slowly, but away from that 'field' you were talking about." Jim tapped the map over top the rough, patchy oval Arte had drawn that covered most of the eastern part of the South Atlantic. There was a bigger circle around that, and he would have continued with concentric circles covering the map but the scientific principles and the math were so far beyond him he didn't dare.

"Yes..." Arte nodded, feeling desperately tired and yet inexplicably awake. "Poor Alonzo...He'll be deprived of his books, but only for another week."

"I wonder if there are other spots like this." Jim muttered, lifting a hand to tilt and spin the globe sitting on the table next to them.

"If it's all true, _if_ it isn't all the fancy of a deranged French-man..." Arte muttered, "I believe there are. Smaller areas with weaker magnetic powers, where the radiance of the sun has less or more affect..."

"What was the author's name?"

"Jules Verne." Arte said, "You know, I read _Journey to the Center of the Earth_ in English two years after he wrote it. I learned to read the French language going through the original. I've been collecting him ever since. His ideas seem so outlandish at first but there's science, real science behind it all. I was so surprised to find a copy of _From the Earth to the Moon _tucked into Alonzo's chest. Clearly his mother had been adding to the collection even after her father disappeared."

"What were the initials on the chest again?"

"N.V."

"Wonder what they stand for." Jim said.

"Maybe we should ask him."


	13. Chapter 12

One week later - Somewhere in the North Atlantic

It had taken five days of constant attention from Artemus, Ian, Dr. Lieben and visits from various others to coerce Mrs. Eleanor Creely to leave her cabin and spend some time out in the sun. At first just crossing the threshold had been a feat, but gradually she became accustomed to leaving the dark sanctuary of her quarters and sitting on deck for a few hours at a time. She was returning to being human, Arte thought, but would she return to being Eleanor? The question created the same tightness in his chest that he had felt holding Jim's body in the bottom of the life boat. He didn't linger on it.

When he wasn't focused on Eleanor, Arte worked on answering the questions of the crew.

He tried to explain his theory about the area of ocean they had been bound to all that time, explaining the idea that the earth's rotation was due to magnetic pull, and that as such the forces were stronger in some areas than others. He mentioned the tide and its operation and the mariners seemed more willing to believe. Those powerful forces could create violent storms, he told them, or mirages, or ghost ships or lighthouses. He assured them that none of them had been truly insane, as they had feared, and that seemed to appease them.

Arte had gone through each of the books in Alonzo's chest, asking the boy which ones he had read on the voyage, and which parts more than once.

The pirate attack on _The Cloud _mirrored the same in the novel "The Pirate" written by Walter Scott. A small essay on light houses, written by Robert Louis Stevenson had been tucked into the back of the book. Arte didn't recognize the author's name but the article, detailing Stevenson's childhood spent in the structures, helped to explain why the mysterious lighthouse in the distance had always been a symbol of safety. Why following it had somehow led them back to _The Cloud. _Back to what Alonzo had described as 'the best day'. It was the day, he said, that everyone had been the happiest.

The day that Eleanor announced they would beat _The Flying Cloud's _former record.

Eleanor had been the one to give him the article, and to read it to him, as it was written in English. She had also given him the letters that Arte found, quite by accident, tucked in the bottom of the chest.

They were his letters, or an assortment of them, written by Gordon shortly following the winter of 1853. Stiff, poorly scribed, but exuberant, they spoke mainly of his memories of the race, the lands they had visited and the work Artemus was beginning in the coming spring. Notes written in Spanish in a child's hand told him that Alonzo had been learning to read and write English using the missives, and probably Eleanor's help. Alonzo refused to reveal exactly who had been working with him.

"That explains the appearance of that African boy in the boat." Arte said, addressing the comment mostly to North and Haversham. "And the storm well..take your pick of the novels and sea journals in the chest, anyone of them could have started it. Or it could have been perfectly natural. That sort of storm in the southern Atlantic is perfectly normal."

"How could he make it happen with just his mind, Mr. Gordon?" Edward North asked, and every man in the mess cabin with him, leaned in.

Arte opened his mouth, stalling the answer because he didn't really have a satisfactory one. "Gentlemen, that I don't really know. There are all manner of powers at work around us every day that we can't yet explain. Perhaps we may, some day, with the advance of science and technology but, for now, we simply have to be content with the knowledge that it's over. We're headed home."

"What about the Creely sails?" Ian asked, his voice and face speaking to the heart-break that many of them felt for Eleanor. For her condition and for the victory that had been ripped from her.

"We'll...do the best we can, Ian. All of you are witnesses to what the sails can do. For some that may be enough, for others, even rock hard proof wouldn't convince them."

* * *

The second and third weeks passed with better winds but with dropping temperatures. Their original plan to sail around the tip of South America had already prepared them for colder weather, and while they had warm coats and extra blankets, they were running out of most other supplies. The men had taken to fishing in the mornings but a diet of meager biscuits and fish, with a dwindling supply of fresh water, made the biscuits more and more a rare commodity and raised new concerns.

While Arte and Jim poured over the maps with Dr. Lieben and Ian Haversham, Carl and Jacob Lenier began to notice that the Creely Sails stiffened unnaturally and wore apart faster in the colder climates. Their use became more and more limited and the speed of the clipper slowed, lengthening their expected arrival by a few more days.

At the beginning of the fourth week many of the men were ill. The lower temperatures and dysentery added to the ever-present emotional and physical strain on their bodies, and it was taking its toll.

The evening of their 46th (or 100th, Artemus had no way of really knowing) day aboard Arte had them seven days away from New Brunswick, Canada, with prevailing winds but dwindling crew. Jim was nearly unconscious in the chair across from him, his feet stretched out under the table and his arms dangling. He'd started to sound sick that morning, but had worked the day along with every other able-bodied man. Arte didn't expect him to be much good come sunrise.

He was surprised when he heard Jim shift in the chair and croak, "What's his grandfather's name?"

"Hmm?"

Jim moaned softly and forced his eyelids open, focused blearily on Artemus and said, "Lonzo...his grandfather?"

It took a while for the question to sink in, making Arte realize he wasn't that much better off either. "He didn't know.." He said finally, looking around him on the table as a vague memory started to nag at the back of his skull. "He thought the first name might have been Noel. That's his name, Alonzo's I mean. Alonzo Noel Alvarez."

He had seen something scribbled, somewhere. At the time Arte had been so tired, and the scribble so illegible that he had pushed it...one of the novels maybe?...to the side and had forgotten it. But now...Artemus Gordon pushed himself to his feet and stumbled over a foot stool near the table he had been sitting at. He ducked automatically under the large lantern hanging from the center of the low ceiling, then bent over Alvarez's sea chest. Thankfully the novel in question, Don Quixote, sat on the top of the pile.

He carried the book to the table, opened the cover and stared hard at the scribble in the top corner. An initial, a last name, and a date, written in indigo ink.

"Vantran..." He said finally, the letters blurring together. But it didn't sound right. It meant nothing in the Spanish language and didn't look like a romanticized respelling of anything else either. "Van train?" He tried again, watching Jim's head nod. A minute later he realized Jim wasn't agreeing with him, but had fallen asleep.

Arte took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair, lifting the novel to eye level as he mumbled the name over and over again. "Noel Vantrain. Noel...Vontrain. Noel Vootrain. Noel Vautrain." Was that a 'u'? Arte squinted and drew the book closer, letting his eyes turn the tight 'n' into a loose 'u' and sure enough, it spelled Vautrain.

"Noel Vautrain.." He muttered to himself, then kicked his foot out and caught the side of Jim's leg under the table. "Jim, does Noel Vautrain sound familiar?"

Jim glared at him balefully at first, then squinted his eyes and straightened in his seat. "Lemme see that." He demanded before reaching across the table and taking the book from Arte. He stared at the page, then up at Gordon. "You're messin' with me Arte." He said with a sly, weary smile. "You wrote that on there."

Arte's brow creased and he started to smile, confused. "No, Jim. No I swear it. I just can't place the name..."

"Vautrain.." Jim smirked, "Colonel Vautrain of the Confederate Army?"

Arte's smile disappeared and he slumped back in his chair. The madman who had lost his legs in the war, who had created his own worlds with the power of his mind, sending himself and others to alternate dimensions. Who had ended his own life with that same power, his dream of new legs and freedom, dying with him.

"Alonzo Alvarez is the grandson of Colonel Noel Vautrain.." Arte said.

"He had daughter?"

"He must have. And she had a son."

* * *

The final journey of the clipper ship _The Flying Cloud_ ended unexpectedly on June 19th, 1874 when she ran aground on the Beacon Island Bar of St. Johns, New Brunswick.

What little was left of the able-bodied men amongst the crew had been unable to control her in the heavy winds and tides of the channel. The keeper of the lighthouse on the island saw her crest on the bar, then settle and immediately began signaling for help. Over the next three days the weary crew were taken ashore at St. Johns and quarantined while they recovered. Some crew members, delirious with fever and more talkative than others, were separated and placed under special psychiatric care.

Artemus Gordon was the first to be released from the quarantine, which had only lasted ten days, instead of the usual 40, and immediately sent a wire to Washington briefly explaining the situation, and another to New York City, requesting that the train be sent north to Maine. The Canadian rail system was short-sighted, literally, in that the rails were placed half a foot closer together than those on American soil, effectively preventing the train from crossing the border.

When asked how Gordon and West, intended to get themselves and their two charges, out of St. Johns, both men vehemently declared that they would go on horseback or foot before they ever stepped aboard another water vessel.

They stayed in Canada to the end of June, until they had been assured that the rest of the crew members would fully recover, and Alonzo Noel Alvarez and Mrs. Eleanor Creely were fit for land travel. Dr. Hadrien Lieben, who had taken over the personal care of Mrs. Creely, insisted so vehemently that he be permitted to join them, neither Secret Serviceman could deny him.

Before they departed, the _Flying Cloud_ had been sold to the docking authorities and unceremoniously scrapped and burned for her copper. An overnight, surreptitious excursion was the only thing to save the Creely sails from total destruction. The sails, the plans and all records of the voyage were shipped ahead to Washington, Eleanor Creely's personal items to the home of her daughter in landlocked Kansas. On their way to San Francisco, to rendezvous with Alonzo's mother, they would deliver Mrs. Creely to her daughter's care.

Jim and Arte were able to negotiate for a wagon in St. Johns and made the overland trip in a week. The afternoon that they reached the railhead and Arte first saw Sierra No. 3 steaming and smoking readily on the line, he nearly wept.

It wasn't long before they and their added passengers were aboard and heading south to Washington.


	14. Epilogue

They spent five days in Washington where they found themselves explaining their vacation as they would a case, not only to the head of the Secret Service, but briefly to President Grant himself.

Leaving Alonzo Alvarez out of the conversation entirely, Arte managed to construct a somewhat plausible explanation for some of the phenomena that they had encountered. Invited to the same meeting was a visiting scientist from Germany who listened intently to what Arte had to say, then requested that Gordon present the same idea in person in Berlin in a year.

As politely as possible Arte refused the offer, promising that he would happily make a presentation and send it via mail, but intended to avoid any and all ocean voyages for the next decade or so.

Eleanor Creely spent most of those five days in the care of Dr. Lieben, going from one expert to another, all of whom suggested rest, good meals, and time spent with loved ones as treatment. Lieben could be heard grousing in the late evenings about the narrow minded practices of American doctors and mailed a dozen requests for advice to various experts of emotions and the brain around the world. His letters were postmarked Wichita, Kansas. When he discovered that one such expert was in Baltimore visiting family, he excused himself, promising that he would re-join Eleanor in Kansas.

Their party dwindled to four and Jim, Arte, Alonzo and Eleanor stepped aboard the train and headed west.

Already they had been told that there was trouble brewing in the Colorado mountains and as soon as they had dropped their final charges, they were to head north.

That left little time for goodbyes and Arte and Eleanor promised to exchange letters, Arte leaving with her the special address that would see the letters to their train car, no matter where in the US they were.

Eleanor's daughter, a smiling, brown haired woman of 27, who met them at the train with her brood of children, each one carrying a gift for Jim and Arte, enveloped her mother in a fierce and loving hug. She seemed to instantly acclimate to her mother's reduced energy and personality and Arte felt the apprehension he'd had in leaving her there disappate a little.

She invited them to dinner and to spend the night in her home, but they were forced to decline. The gifts, canned preserves, two fresh apple pies, a sampler wrapped in tissue paper, and an envelope stuffed with papers, were placed aboard the train. Alonzo tightly hugged Eleanor with a final teary goodbye, and Arte placed a kiss on her forehead. The one he had hoped to steal from her lips would remain un-stolen.

That evening, No. 3 speeding ever westward, and Alonzo Alvarez tucked into his bed reading the thank you letters that each one of Eleanor's grandchildren had written, Arte and Jim sat in the near black stillness of the lounge car. The lanterns were turned low, each man sitting with a cigar in one hand and a glass of almost untouched brandy in the other.

"She'll be fine, Arte." Jim ventured, watching the dark, brooding look on his friend's face lift just a little.

"I know, Jim. Her daughter was a delight and clearly loved her mother, I'm not worried about that."

"Alonzo?"

Arte nodded.

"If we thought his grandfather was a powerful and dangerous man, Alonzo is more so, and without even trying. But he's a boy, a good boy. Extremely intelligent and good hearted." Arte paused, almost taking a sip of the brandy before he interrupted himself. "What do we tell his mother? Or do we say anything? Should we warn him, or her? The power of his imagination alone nearly killed us thrice."

"Why not just tell them never to go to South Africa?"

"Ah but Jim, those high-magnitude areas could exist anywhere. Maybe not as powerful, but certainly with enough concentration for _something_ to happen."

Jim was quiet for a bit, puffing on his cigar every minute or so. "We'll always know how to find him, though, won't we?" He asked, smirking at Arte.

Artemus chuckled shaking his head. "If any pirates crop up in the desert we can point to them and say, 'That's our Alonzo.'"

Jim was grinning. "Can you imagine if he got his hands on our case files?"

Arte winced, laughing and groaning at the same time. What a horror that would be, reliving every one of them through Alonzo's imagination.

"You know I'm more afraid of someone else finding out about this...this power of his. Trying to exploit it while he's young and impressionable."

"We can't keep him with us, Arte." Jim said.

"I know.." Arte said, throwing the idea off the pile.

"We'll keep in touch with him, keep an eye on him. He'll be fine, Arte."

They sat together without speaking, the clanging, and rocking and squealing of the train a familiar and soothing melody that had nothing to do with the ocean.

After a few minutes Jim pointed the tip of his cigar at the tissue paper wrapped bundle on the desk Arte sat behind.

"What's that?"

"Oh, one of the gifts Eleanor's grandchildren gave us."

Jim waited, watching Arte until he finally reached out to the package and untied the string keeping the tissue paper around it.

The sampler, a hand stitched cotton and embroidery affair was delicately done with an expert hand. In red, pink, blue and black a phrase had been stitched into the cloth, then surrounded by flowers, birds and other appropriate decorations. The finished product sat in a walnut frame.

Arte read it once then shot to his feet, read it again, then tossed it onto the table.

"Oh that's not funny, Jim. That's cruel." He muttered, turning away from it and the confused look on Jim's face.

West stood to lean over the desk, then read the inscription and started to laugh.

"You think it's funny!?" Arte squeaked, in disgust.

"I think it's hilarious." Jim said, laughing again.

The sampler read:

"Never underestimate the power of a good book."

* * *

_Author's Note: A great big thank you to everyone who has been reading this fanfic, and especially those who took the time to review every chapter. What excellent motivation!_

_My apologies to any and all mistakes but I am new to the fandom and knew that I would be making some. _

_I wanted to acknowledge some of the real life stars of this fic. Primarily _The Flying Cloud_ which was a real clipper. In 1853 she raced from New York to San Francisco, making record time and beating her competitors. She held this record for almost 100 years. _

_Her pilot and navigator were Mr. Josiah Creesy (not Creely) and his wife, Mrs. Eleanor Creesy, who sailed her so expertly around the tip of South America. Unfortunately there is so little known about _The Cloud_ I took quite few liberties. Her ignominious end was in June of 1874 when she ran aground on Beacon Island, and she was subsequently scrapped and burned. _

_The magnetic disturbance that Arte 'discovered' is known as the South Atlantic Anomaly, and can in fact only be detected from space (as far as I know.) But I cheat a lot. _

_All other characters were either the property of the creators of the WWW or of my own design. _

_As I plan to write many more stories in the future I would point to one final note. I have become rather fond of the actor/singer/stuntman Red West and decided to include him in this story. Ian Haversham should have looked and sounded a lot like him. You can look for him in my future fics._

_Again, thank you. _

_Gunney_


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